by  t^e  author  of 


Miss 


s Mission  and 


RS&rJIT&fc 


PEN. 


WORKS   BY   THE   SAME   AUTHOR. 


Uniform  to  ill)  tfjis  Tolumr. 
"TIP-CAT."     i6mo.     Cloth.    $1.00. 

We  welcome  another  tale  by  the  anonymous  author  of 
"Laddie."  In  this  unassuming  story  genuine  humor,  pa- 
thos, and  much  observation  of  human,  and  especially  chil- 
dren's, nature  are  displayed,  together  with  a  delightful 
style.  —  Times. 

OUR   LITTLE  ANN.    i6mo.    Cloth.   $1.00. 

Never  were  the  simplicity  and  affectionateness  of  abused 
girlhood  and  thorough  womanhood  drawn  with  more  skill 
and  loving  effect  than  in  the  character  of  the  heroine, 
Little  Ann.  —  Mail  and  Express. 


MISS  TOOSEY'S  MISSION,  AND  LAD- 
DIE.    i6mo.     Cloth.     50  cents. 

To  our  mind  there  is  more  pathos  and  beauty  between 
the  "  twa  boards  "  of  this  little  book  than  is  to  be  found  in 
mauy  a  three-volume  novel.  —  Guardian. 


ROBERTS  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS, 
Boston. 


PEN. 


E  N. 


BY   THE   AUTHOR   OF 


"MISS   TOOSEY'S   MISSION  "AND   "LADDIE/ 
"  TIP-CAT,"  AND   "OUR  LITTLE   ANN." 


BOSTON: 

ROBERTS     BROTHERS. 
1888. 


EntfjcrsttD 
JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER 

I.    MOTHERLESS 


II.  AUNT  PENELOPE 

III.  A  FIRESIDE  TALK 

IV.  FLOWERS  FOR  HER     .    . 

V.  Louis  BRAND'S  CHILDREN 55 

VI.  HIGHFIELD 65 

VII.  MOTHER'S  GRAVE 80 

VIII.  A  DAY  OF  REST 90 

IX.  THE  FAMILY  CONSTELLATION      .    .    .  102 

X.  ONLY  FOR  A  FORTNIGHT 112 

XI.  COMING  BACK 121 

XII.  WHAT'S  TO  BE  DONE? 140 

XIII.  A  WOOING 158 

XIV.  THE  WEDDING-DRESS 174 

XV  THE  BRIDEGROOM 189 

XVI.  THERE  's  MANY  A  SLIP    .         ....  198 


6  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  PACK 

XVII.  YOUNG  TOM 209 

XVIII.  SANDY'S  RETURN 222 

XIX.  GOING  COURTING 232 

XX.  AMONG  THE  LILIES 244 

XXI.  LITTLE  Miss  TRE 253 

XXII.  DRIFTING 268 

XXIII.  A  THREATENING  OF  GOUT    .  282 


PEN. 

CHAPTER    I. 

MOTHERLESS. 

I  CAN  begin  my  story  as  country  folk  in  old 
times  used  to  begin  their  laborious  letters : 
"  I  now  take  up  my  pen ;  "  the  pen  in  this  case, 
not  being  a  finely  crusted,  old  nib,  stuck  in  a 
much- nibbled  holder,  and  held  in  inky  country 
fingers,  but  a  very  tear-stained,  sobbing,  little  Pen, 
in  a  large  and  rather  ragged  armchair,  situated  in 
a  shabby,  little  front  parlor  in  Dalston.  Penelope 
Brand  is  just  motherless,  only  just,  for  half  an 
hour,  out  in  the  cold  world,  without  a  mother's 
wing,  and  she  and  little  Tre  are  clinging  together, 
with  arms  round  necks,  and  wet  cheek  pressed 
to  wet  cheek. 

Tre  will  soon  get  over  it ;  she  is  only  six,  and 
has  that  blessed,  but  rather  startling  power  of 
rapid  recovery  that  is  granted  to  children;  even 
now,  I  think,  her  tears  are  more  in  sympathy 


8  PEN. 

with  Pen  than  expressive  of  her  own  sorrow,  and 
she  is  even  conscious  that  it  is  tea-time  and  that 
the  kitten  is  playing  with  the  reels  in  mother's 
work-basket ;  while  as  for  Pen,  who  is  fifteen,  the 
grim  presence  of  death  in  the  house  seems  to 
have  swept  away  all  times  and  seasons  and  ob- 
jects for  doing  anything,  and  power  to  move  or 
speak  or  do  anything  but  sit  there  with  Tre,  cud- 
dled close  to  her  sad,  sore,  little  heart,  and  cry 
and  cry  and  cry  and  wish  for  mother,  and  listen 
to  strange  footsteps  in  the  room  above,  where  a 
gloomy  old  woman  in  a  black  bonnet  had  ap- 
peared mysteriously  on  the  scene,  and  had  insisted 
on  Tre  leaving  that  place  by  the  bedside  which 
had  been  hers  by  right  for  so  long.  If  it  had 
been  still  mother  lying  there,  no  power  on  earth 
could  have  moved  Pen ;  but  that  still,  silent,  sol- 
emn form  was  not  mother ;  hardly  so  much 
mother  to  Pen's  mind  as  the  worn,  shabby,  old 
dress  hanging  against  the  door,  or  the  shawl  that 
lay  still  on  the  sofa ;  so  she  was  persuaded  to  go 
away,  and  found  her  way,  dazzled  and  shaking, 
downstairs,  where  the  daylight  seemed  to  have  an 
unnatural  glare,  and  all  the  old  familiar  things  to 
look  strange  and  impossible. 

Father  was  locked  into  the  little  room  at  the 
back  of  the  house  which  he  called  his  studio,  and 


MOTHERLESS.  9 

where  his  painting  things  lay  about,  not  often  dis- 
turbed from  their  picturesque  confusion  by  the 
exertions  of  their  master.  There  is  no  knowing 
how  long  Pen  would  have  sat  there,  sunk  in  a  sort 
of  stupor  of  grief,  if  the  sound  of  horses'  feet  had 
not  penetrated  even  to  her  poor,  dulled,  little  brain 
and  brought  her  suddenly  back  to  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  very  rough  head  and  crumpled  collar  on 
her  own  part  and  a  ragged  pinafore  and  smeared 
face  in  the  part  of  Tre ;  and  she  got  up  mechani- 
cally and  made  a  weary,  ineffectual,  little  effort  to 
improve  matters,  and  to  poke  up  the  ashy  fire  and 
straighten  the  disordered  furniture,  which  bore  un- 
mistakable signs  of  having  been  turned  into  a  very 
satisfactory  railway  while  the  attention  of  elders 
was  absorbed  upstairs  and  Tre  had  it  all  her  own 
way  below. 

There  seemed  no  immediate  reason  why  the 
even  trotting  of  a  pair  of  horses  and  the  soft  roll 
of  carriage  wheels  should  have  roused  Pen  to  the 
consciousness  of  the  general  untidiness ;  many 
other  vehicles  had  passed  since  she  first  came 
down  from  mother's  room,  and  she  had  taken  no 
note  of  them ;  the  heavy  prison  van  that  the  chil- 
dren called  "  Black  Maria  "  had  lumbered  by  and 
none  of  them  had  even  cast  a  look  or  wondered 
what  burden  of  sin  or  sorrow  it  was  carrying  off 


10  PEN. 

to  justice ;  one  of  the  red  Parcels  Post  carts  had 
pulled  up  at  the  house  opposite,  and  there  had 
been  a  long  discussion  over  a  wrongly  directed 
parcel,  which  at  another  time  would  have  roused 
great  interest,  and  convictions  that  the  parcel  was 
really  intended  for  No.  37,  but  was  now  unno- 
ticed ;  some  big  wagons  loaded  to  a  giddy  height 
with  chair-frames  had  darkened  the  room ;  a  milk- 
cart  had  zigzagged  along  the  road,  dispensing 
small  tin  cans  to  its  various  customers ;  half  a 
dozen  other  carts  of  one  sort  or  another  had 
passed,  all  with  a  noise  and  a  rattle  that  were 
wanting  in  the  clean,  even  trot  of  this  particular 
pair  of  horses  and  the  light  roll  of  the  wheels  that 
followed ;  and  yet  these  brought  Pen  hurriedly  to 
her  feet,  trying  with  trembling  hands  to  remedy 
rough  hair  and  rumpled  frocks  and  displaced 
furniture. 

That  carriage  was  not  unknown  in  Purton  Street ; 
for  the  last  month  it  had  frequently  been  seen 
there,  almost  as  often  lately  as  the  doctor's  shabby 
brougham,  whose  broken-kneed  horse  pulled  up  of 
its  own  accord  at  No.  37.  But,  before  proceeding 
further,  I  had  better  explain  how  it  was  that  this 
apparition  of  sleek,  well-groomed  horses  and  fash- 
ionably built  brougham,  every  inch  of  whose  glossy 
coats  and  shining  panels  and  silver-plated  harness 


MOTHERLESS.  1 1 

told  of  West  End  affluence,  was  to  be  seen  in  the 
sordid,  shabby,  little  street  in  Dalston,  and  I  will 
take  advantage  of  the  few  moments  occupied  by 
the  coachman  in  drawing  up  his  horses  with  beau- 
tiful precision  on  exactly  the  right  spot,  an  art  so 
difficult  to  arrive  at  by  amateur  coachmen,  who 
generally  hit  the  juste  milieu  between  the  house 
they  aim  at  and  the  next  to  right  or  left,  and 
either  grate  against  the  curb  or  steer  so  clear  of 
it  that  they  have  to  hail  the  servant  who  opens 
the  door  with  a  quarter-deck  shout  from  the  mid- 
dle of  the  road.  But  the  precision  is  not  the  only 
thing  to  wonder  at  and  admire  in  Miss  Percival's 
coachman ;  we  should  also  note  the  wooden  ex- 
pression of  indifference  and  the  apparent  stiffness 
of  neck  which  is  to  be  observed  in  him  as  in  all 
well- trained  coachmen,  not  turning  his  head  an 
inch  either  to  the  right  or  left  to  look  at  the  sur- 
roundings, which  might  be  Buckingham  Palace  or 
a  pigsty  for  all  that  he  knows  or  cares,  and  like- 
wise being  apparently  unconscious  or  indifferent  as 
to  whether  the  occupant  of  the  carriage,  safely 
piloted  through  the  wild  hubbub  and  confusion  of 
the  City,  gets  out  or  remains  in,  that  being  no  con- 
cern of  his,  but  the  business  of  the  tall  footman  in 
an  unbelievably  long  drab  coat,  who  gets  down, 
touches  his  hat  at  the  carriage  door,  and  then  gives 


1 2  PEN. 

as  artistic  a  performance  on  the  knocker  of  No. 
37  as  that  very  inferior  instrument  will  permit,- 
and  then  comes  back  with  another  touch  of  the 
hat  to  open  the  carriage  door,  and  turn  back  the 
big  lion-skin  rug  which  has  been  protecting  Miss 
Percival  from  the  inclemency  of  the  weather. 

Miss  Percival  is  aunt  to  Tre  and  Pen,  Aunt  Pe- 
nelope, though  even  now  they  were  not  sufficiently 
used  to  her  velvets  and  furs  and  clear,  cold  eyes  to 
venture  to  call  her  so,  or  hardly  to  believe  that  she 
could  in  any  way  be  of  the  same  order  of  creation 
as  they  were.  She  was  sister  too  to  "mother" 
to  the  white,  still  mother  lying  upstairs  in  the  little 
bedroom,  with  the  calm  content  of  death  on  her 
waxen  lips.  People  used  to  say  the  two  sisters 
were  wonderfully  alike,  though  Pen  would  deny 
it  angrily,  almost  fiercely,  with  tears  of  indigna- 
tion in  her  eyes;  though  unprejudiced  observers 
would  have  said  it  was  a  great  compliment  to  the 
wan,  weary  woman,  whatever  it  might  have  been 
when  she  and  Penelope  were  girls  together. 

Yes,  girls  together,  sisters  —  only  sisters  too, 
without  mother  or  sister  to  share  the  love  between 
them,  and  yet,  till  six  weeks  ago,  they  had  not 
met  for  sixteen  years. 

No  doubt  the  blame  was  entirely  due  to  Mrs. 
Brand,  and  she  received  it  from  all  right-minded 


MOTHERLESS.  13 

people ;  but,  dear  reader,  if  you  and  I  are  not  quite 
right-minded  in  this  respect,  we  may  shelter  our- 
selves under  the  grim  segis  of  death  —  de  mortuis 
nil  nisi  bonum  —  and  love  and  pity  her  instead. 
There  was  but  one  opinion  on  the  subject  when 
Theresa  Percival,  not  quite  eighteen,  ran  away  with 
her  drawing-master.  She  had  just  left  school  and 
was  to  be  presented  at  the  next  drawing-room,  and 
come  out  with  all  the  pomp  and  ceremony  which 
had  attended  Penelope's  debut  the  year  before ; 
her  presentation  dress  had  come  home,  and  the 
girl  had  stood  decked  out  in  the  "  soft  sheen  of 
satin  and  glimmer  of  pearls,"  light  clouds  of  tulle 
and  snowy  feathers ;  and  the  admiring  beholders 
whispered  that  no  lovelier  debutante  would  kiss 
her  Majesty's  hand  that  season,  and  no  one  had 
noticed  the  strange,  frightened  look  in  the  girl's 
face  and  the  wistful  quiver  of  her  lips. 

But,  two  days  after  that  rehearsal,  she  was 
sought  for  in  vain,  and  a  note,  in  trembling  char- 
acters, with  more  than  one  blot  where  a  tear  had 
fallen,  told  how  her  life's  happiness  was  bound  up 
with  Louis  Brand ;  that  she  knew  it  was  useless 
to  ask  her  parents'  consent,  so  she  could  only  ask 
them  to  forgive  and  forget  their  wretched,  little 
daughter,  Theresa. 

There  was  no  doubt  the  Percivals  bore  the  blow 


14  PEN. 

excellently.  Society  noticed  some  gray  threads  in 
Mrs.  Percival's  smooth  hair  that  were  not  there 
before,  and  fancied  that  Colonel  Percival  stooped 
a  little  more  than  of  old,  and  that  Penelope  car- 
ried her  head  higher,  with  a  haughty  look  in  her 
eyes,  as  if  to  defy  remark  on  their  wounded  pride. 
The  Percivals  had  always  been  such  a  proud 
family,  their  line  went  back  through  generation 
before  generation,  with  honor  unstained  and  un- 
tarnished, and  their  arms  had  been  quartered  with 
all  the  best  and  oldest  in  the  kingdom. 

And  this  miserable  girl  had  brought  disgrace  on 
them,  and  for  what  ?  An  artist  fellow  with  a  black 
mustache  and  a  velvet  coat  and  a  would-be  Ital- 
ian appearance,  when  any  one  who  cared  to  ask 
knew  that  his  father  kept  a  shop  in  Bristol. 

But  the  Percivals  behaved  very  well,  indeed 
Mrs.  Percival's  conduct  may 'be  described  as  he- 
roic, for  everything  went  on  just  as  usual;  with 
one  great  exception,  the  whole  brilliant  programme 
for  the  season  was  carried  out  to  the  last  iota. 
Mrs.  Percival  even  went  to  that  very  drawing-room 
and  presented  a  niece,  without  an  outward  sign 
of  the  sick,  wounded  mother's  heart  under  the 
moir£  and  diamonds ;  she  went  through  the  whole 
round  of  balls  and  dinners  and  fetes  and  operas. 
She  never  shirked  a  single  engagement ;  could  any 


MOTHERLESS.  1 5 

Spartan  matron  have  done  more  ?  Only  Theresa's 
name  was  never  mentioned  again ;  when  once  that 
little,  hastily  scrawled,  tear-blotted  note  was  crum- 
pled up  and  thrown  into  the  fire  no  further  refer- 
ence was  made  to  her ;  her  name  never  passed  her 
mother's  lips.  No  useless  efforts  were  made  to  re- 
trieve the  false  step,  no  bitter  reproaches  or  cruel 
valedictory  words  were  sent  after  the  culprit ;  only 
the  curtain  of  silence  was  dropped  between  her 
and  her  family,  and  every  belonging  of  hers  that 
might  have  recalled  her  to  their  minds  was  swept 
out  of  sight,  and  for  sixteen  years  her  name  was 
never  mentioned.  Did  they  ever  relent?  No,  I 
think  not,  till  it  was  too  late.  You  see,  every  one 
said  they  were  in  the  right,  and  they  firmly  believed 
it  themselves,  and  perhaps  it  was  so ;  and  they 
could  not  understand  that  that  was  the  very  rea- 
son why  they  could  more  easily  have  relented,  as 
it  is  so  much  easier  for  the  injured  to  make  the 
first  advances  than  the  injurer. 

Perhaps  if  Theresa  Brand  had  come  begging  for- 
giveness and  help  it  might  have  been  different,  but 
then  she  was  proud  too,  and,  all  the  more  because 
she  was  poor  and  struggling  and  not  always  very 
happy,  and  hungered  and  thirsted  after  a  word  or 
a  look  from  her  own  people,  she  kept  carefully 
and  scrupulously  away,  avoiding  the  barest  chance 


1 6  PEN. 

of  the  meeting  which  might  so  easily  have  come 
about  even  in  this  great,  full  world.  Once  I  think 
Mrs.  Percival  was  not  very  far  from  relenting,  when, 
one  Christmas,  a  letter  arrived  with  the  London 
post-mark  and  directed  in  a  hand  all  the  more 
familiar  because  it  had  not  been  seen  for  four 
years  —  which,  I  am  afraid,  sounds  Irish,  but  is 
true  all  the  same. 

Inside  there  was  only  a  curl  of  the  softest,  most 
golden  hair,  and  on  the  paper  containing  it  were 
the  words,  "  For  grandmamma  from  little  Pen." 

She  stood  a  long  time  looking  at  that  golden 
curl,  and  perhaps  her  eyes  were  not  quite  clear 
enough  to  see  how  soft  and  bright  it  was,  for  there 
was  a  troublesome  moisture  that  dimmed  them 
more  than  once  that  Christmas  morning,  the  morn- 
ing of  all  others  when  mothers'  hearts  must  need 
be  soft.  But  not  even  that  would  unlock  those 
closed  lips  from  their  four  years'  silence,  and 
when  at  last,  a  few  years  later,  those  poor  lips 
were  trying  to  frame  the  daughter's  name,  the 
power  had  been  taken  away.  She  was  struck 
with  paralysis  one  morning  and  died  in  the  even- 
ing without  recovering  power  of  speech,  though 
the  nurse,  who  was  with  her,  told  how,  through 
that  long  day,  the  poor  lips  tried  and  tried  to 
form  some  word,  and  the  eyes  looked  with  a 


MOTHERLESS.  I? 

terrible  appeal  into  the  faces  of  those  by  the 
bedside,  who  could  not  understand  what  she 
meant.  Penelope  was  away  in  Scotland  and, 
though  she  was  telegraphed  for,  arrived  too  late 
to  see  her  mother  alive ;  and  as  for  Colonel  Per- 
cival  he  was  so  entirely  unmanned  by  this  sudden 
blow  that  he  had  to  be  kept  entirely  out  of  the 
sick-room,  where  his  irrepressible,  hysterical  grief 
distressed  the  patient,  even  through  the  numbness 
of  mind  and  body  that  was  deepening  every  hour. 

The  arrangements  for  the  funeral  all  fell  upon 
Penelope,  as  her  father  was  sunk  into  a  sort  of  stu- 
por of  grief;  but,  if  the  thought  of  her  sister  crossed 
her  mind  then,  she  did  not  know  where  to  write  to 
her,  and  perhaps  she  took  it  for  granted  that  she 
would  see  the  notice  in  the  morning  papers  and 
would  write  or  come.  But  the  "  Times "  and 
"  Morning  Post "  were  not  much  in  the  way  .of 
Mrs.  Brand,  and  it  was  not  till  nearly  three  months 
after,  that  a  lady  in  mourning  arrived  at  Highfield 
station  and  walked  up  to  the  little,  old  church,  and 
found  her  way  to  the  corner  where  generation  after 
generation  of  Percivals  rest  under  the  great,  ugly, 
flat  tombs.  Near  one  of  these,  where  the  fresh  let- 
tering showed  that  Mary,  wife  of  Philip  Percival, 
had  departed  this  life  August  loth,  that  same  year, 
the  stranger  sat  in  the  damp  November  grass  for 


1 8  PEN. 

nearly  an  hour,  and,  when  she  went,  left  a  wreath 
of  such  costly  beauty  that  many  of  the  Highfield 
people  came  to  look  and  wonder,  and  the  Hall  gar- 
dener himself  (and  who  knew  better?)  wagered 
that  it  had  cost  a  pretty  penny.  No  one  recog- 
nized her,  and,  if  it  had  not  been  for  that  wreath, 
the  few  who  noticed  her  would  have  thought  that 
she  was  not  of  much  account,  for  her  dress  was 
shabby  and  she  did  not  take  a  fly  from  the  station. 

And  after  that  the  time  passed  on  again,  and 
Penelope  was  mistress  at  Highfield  Hall  and  her 
father's  right  hand  ;  for  the  Colonel  was  never  the 
same  man  after  his  wife's  death,  feeble  in  body  and 
a  little  bit  childish  in  mind,  needing  all  the  support 
that  his  stately,  dignified,  self-contained  daughter 
was  so  capable  of  giving.  And  so  sixteen  years 
passed  away  and  the  sisters  never  met.  Think  of 
it,,  dear  reader,  sixteen  years  out  of  this  short  life, 
with  all  the  love  and  tenderness  and  comfort  they 
might  have  given  and  received ;  and  the  loss  in 
not  having  given  the  love  is  more  grievous  really 
than  not  receiving  it,  mere  irretrievable,  more 
disastrous. 

And  when  the  meeting  and  reconciliation  came 
it  was  too  late.  It  was  quite  by  chance  —  if  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  chance  —  that  Penelope  Per- 
cival  heard  of  her  sister's  illness.  It  was  at  one  of 


MOTHERLESS.  19 

the  winter  exhibitions  of  pictures,  when  she  was 
spending  a  few  days  in  London,  that  her  eye  was 
caught  by  a  name  among  the  exhibitors  which  ar- 
rested her  attention,  "  Evening  in  North  Devon  " 
by  Louis  Brand.  It  was  quite  a  small  picture  and 
pretty,  without  any  particular  talent  in  it,  and  the 
lady  who  was  with  Miss  Percival,  and  who  was  a 
connoisseur  in  art  and  quite  a  recent  acquaintance 
of  Penelope's,  wondered  at  the  fixed  attention  with 
which  she  regarded  the  picture. 

"  Louis  Brand?  "  she  said.  "  Ah  !  it  was  about 
him  that  I  heard  such  a  sad  story  the  other  day : 
the  usual  thing,  a  wife  in  the  last  stage  of  con- 
sumption and  a  large  family  nearly  starving.  —  Ah  ! 
look  at  this,  No.  340,  "A  Gourmand."  Isn't  it 

'*& 

fine?  the  expression  of  that  sweep's  face  and  the 
dog  looking  over  his  shoulder  at  the  mutton  pie  ! 
Capital !  capital !  " 

But  that  afternoon  Miss  Percival's  carriage  first 
electrified  the  humble  dwellers  in  Purton  Street, 
Dalston,  and  the  knocker  at  No.  37  was  roused 
out  of  its  usual  indolent  habit  of  giving  one  bang 
to  announce  the  milk  or  the  tax-collector,  and 
made  its  first  essay  at  a  West  End  fantasia. 

But  even  if  Mrs.  Brand  had  not  been  so  ill  that 
reconciliation  came  too  late.  But  perhaps  you 
may  say  it  is  never  too  late  to  be  reconciled,  and 


20  PEN. 

in  one  sense  you  are  right ;  but  it  is  very  soon  too 
late  to  get  any  happiness  or  pleasure  out  of  a  rec- 
onciliation. Fancy  what  that  meeting  might  have 
been  six  days  or  six  weeks  or  even  six  months 
after  their  parting ;  think  how  the  two  girls  would 
have  clung  together  and  kissed  and  clung  again, 
with  such  a  store  of  sympathy  and  tender  reproach 
and  loving  explanation.  Even  after  six  years  it 
might  have  been  just  possible,  but  after  sixteen 
years  what  could  you  expect  when  every  day  had 
been  building  up  between  them,  little  by  little,  a 
wall  of  separate  interests,  different  experiences, 
loves  and  hates,  in  which  the  other  could  -have  no 
share  ;  sufferings  and  pleasures  which  the  other 
would  hardly  comprehend,  much  less  sympathize 
with? 

And,  added  to  this,  Mrs.  Brand  was  past  caring. 
She  had  longed  with  a  sickening  craving  at  times 
to  look  into  her  mother's  face,  to  show  her  bonny, 
little  Pen  to  her  grandfather,  to  hold  her  sister's 
hand  and  feel  her  kisses  on  her  cheek,  but  that 
was  long  ago,  and  now  she  turned  away  from  that 
sister's  kiss  which  seemed  cold  and  formal  and 
lifeless,  and  from  the  comforts  with  which  Miss 
Percival  would  gladly  have  surrounded  her,  to  lay 
her  tired  head  on  her  husband's  shoulder,  with  its 
threadbare  velvet  coat ;  for,  after  all,  though  he 


MOTHERLESS.  21 

might  have  been  careless  and  improvident  and  in- 
considerate, he  had  loved  her,  and  his  love  had 
been  all  her  happiness  during  those  sixteen  years, 
nearly  half  her  lifetime  ;  and  it  was  Pen's  hand 
she  felt  for  when  sight  and  sense  were  failing,  and 
to  her,  child  as  she  was,  that  she  committed  the 
little  sister  Tre.  "  Take  care  of  her,  dear,"  she 
whispered ;  and  when  Penelope  would  have  taken 
the  little,  rosy,  sleeping  child  from  the  bed  where 
she  lay  by  her  dying  mother's  side,  she  shook  her 
head  with  a  smile  that  cut  like  a  sword  to  that 
sister's  heart. 

"Don't  trouble,  dear,"  she  said.  "I  like  to 
have  her  here,  and  when  —  Pen  will  take  care 
of  her." 


CHAPTER   II. 

AUNT     PENELOPE. 

IT  has  taken  so  long  to  explain  the  presence  of 
Miss  Percival's  carriage  in  Purton  Street,  that 
if,  in  the  mean  time,  the  door  had  not  been  opened 
and  Miss  Percival  admitted,  I  think  that  even 
the  coachman,  with  his  stiff  neck  and  regulation 
manner,  would  have  turned  his  head  to  see  the 
reason.  But  Eliza,  the  maid- of- all-work,  with  the 
natural  desire  of  her  class  to  be  the  first  to  tell 
bad  news,  which  seems  to  have  been  a  character- 
istic of  human  nature  as  long  ago  as  the  time  of 
David,  when  Ahimahaz  longed  to  carry  the  news 
of  Absalom's  death,  flew  to  open  the  door,  before 
the  man's  hand  was  off  the  knocker,  and  she  had 
the  corner  of  her  dirty  apron  to  her  eyes,  and,  on 
her  lips,  the  usual  hackneyed  words  by  which  we 
try  to  soften,  in  our  vulgar  way,  the  grim  simplicity 
of  death. 

There  had  been  nothing  in  the  outside  aspect  to 
prepare  Miss  Percival ;  the  blinds  were  not  pulled 
down,  except  in  the  upper  room,  where  they  were 


AUNT   PENELOPE.  23 

generally  so ;  and  the  day  before  Mrs.  Brand  had 
seemed  a  little  better — the  last  flickering  up  of 
the  strength  that  often  precedes  the  final  extin- 
guishing. But  "Liza  did  not  get  any  of  the  ex- 
pected effects,  which  would  have  added  so  much 
to  the  interest  of  the  story,  when  she  described 
the  scene  afterwards ;  Miss  Percival  did  not 
"  swound  away ;  "  she  did  not  throw  up  her  hands 
and  give  a  cry  "  as  would  have  cut  you  to  the 
heart  to  hear ; "  she  did  not  turn  "  as  white  as  a 
sheet"  or  "  tremble  like  a  leaf;"  but  she  just 
swept  past  the  girl  in  the  narrow  passage  and 
went  into  the  sitting-room,  even  drawing  away 
her  skirts  from  contact  with  the  coal-scuttle, 
which  'Liza  had  upset  in  her  haste  to  answer  the 
door. 

Her  coming  had  startled  the  children's  tears 
away,  and  I  am  afraid  this  was  not  the  first  time 
she  had  seen  Tre  with  a  dirty  face,  and  Pen  had  no 
traditions  in  her  young  life  of  the  proper  authorized 
behavior  in  times  of  affliction,  only  an  inborn  sense 
of  courtesy,  and  a  remembrance  of  mother's  gra- 
cious reception  of  visitors,  however  untimely ;  so 
she  came  forward  with  a  little,  difficult  smile,  to 
extricate  for  her  aunt's  use  a  chair  that  had  been 
enacting  the  part  of  tender  in  the  train,  and  she 
made  some  little  mechanical  remark  about  the 


24  PEN. 

weather  being  bad  and  hoping  that  her  aunt's  cold 
was  better. 

"  But  children  have  no  hearts,"  Miss  Percival 
thought,  as  she  sat  down  by  the  table,  showing  by 
this  judgment  that  she  was  as  ignorant  of  human 
nature  in  one  way  as  'Liza  was  in  another,  the  one 
by  expecting  stereotyped  expressions  of  grief  in 
children,  the  other  by  looking  for  vulgar  and  vio- 
lent manifestations  of  sorrow  in  a  lady.  To  be 
'sure  she  had  very  little  experience  of  children, 
except  the  village  school  children  at  Highfield, 
who  bobbed  terrified,  little  courtesies  to  her,  re- 
garding her  as  a  condensed  form  of  the  "  betters," 
to  whom  they  were  to  orde'r  themselves  lowly  and 
reverently.  She  also  thought  she  knew  a  good 
deal  of  the  members  of  the  Girls'  Friendly  Society, 
to  whom  she  gave  most  excellent  advice,  which 
perhaps  might  have  been  of  more  use  if  she  had 
known  anything  really  of  the  muddling,  young 
lives  with  their  small,  insignificant  troubles  and 
foolish  pleasures,  and  could  have  sympathized  in 
the  smallest  degree  with  those  stupid,  little  drudges 
whom  she  was  desirous  of  helping  to  better  things. 

She  had  not  felt  attracted  to  these  children  of 
her  sister's,  they  could  not  exactly  be  treated  as 
friendly  girls  or  national  school  children,  and  she 
had  made  up  her  mind  long  ago  as  to  what  Louis 


AUNT  PENELOPE.  25 

Brand's  children  were  likely  to  be,  and  all  through 
her  life  Miss  Percival's  conclusions  had  been  right ; 
and  no  one,  herself  least  of  all,  had  ever  doubted 
the  Q.  E.  D.  that  followed  her  deductions,  or,  at 
any  rate,  had  ever  convinced  her  that  she  was  in 
the  wrong ;  so  that  not  even  Pen's  delicate,  little 
face  and  gentle  voice,  or  Tre's  sweet,  childish 
grace  could  quite  convince  her  that  they  were  not 
the  underbred,  common,  little  creatures  she  had 
imagined.  Louis  Brand's  children  were  not  likely 
to  have  deep  feelings,  and,  after  the  first  rather 
mechanical  kiss  on  the  cheeks,  where,  if  she  had 
noticed  it,  she  might  have  found  the  tears  were 
scarcely  dry,  she  sat  down  by  the  table,  involun- 
tarily straightening  the  table-cloth  and  stroking 
out  the  creases  in  a  way  that  conveyed  a  keen  re- 
proach to  Pen  for  its  untidiness,  though  indeed 
Miss  Percival  was  quite  unconscious  of  her  act ;  or 
of  the  shabby,  disordered  room ;  or  of  Pen's  anx- 
ious little  face ;  or  of  Tre,  with  a  firm  hold  on  her 
sister's  protecting  frock,  gazing  at  her  with  big 
eyes  full  of  awe  and  reverence. 

Her  thoughts  had  gone  back  to  old  days  at 
Highfield,  when  she  and  her  sister  were  all  in  all 
to  one  another;  to  happy,  girlish,  light-hearted 
days,  before  life  had  settled  down  into  the  dig- 
nified monotony  it  had  gradually  assumed.  Those 


26  PEN. 

days  did  not  seem  so  far  off  now  as  they  had  done 
when  her  sister  was  living,  and  when  every  word 
and  look  reminded  her  of  the  gulf  those  sixteen 
years  had  made  between  them.  The  Theresa  who 
was  just  dead  was  the  girl-sister,  the  playfellow,  the 
confidante  who  had  shared  everything  with  her, 
and  been  in  such  perfect  sympathy  that  she  had 
seemed  a  second  self;  and  not  the  weary,  worn- 
out  woman,  who  had  seen  so  much  trouble  and 
poverty  and  loneliness,  and  who  had  a  drawing- 
master  artist  husband,  and  rough,  troublesome 
children. 

Presently  she  got  up  and  w.ent  upstairs,  up  the 
narrow,  steep  staircase.  She  gave  a  little  irritable 
shudder  as  she  passed  a  door  from  which  the  sound 
of  men's  voices  and  the  smell  of  tobacco  smoke 
proceeded.  It  would  have  been  odious  to  her  to 
come  across  Louis  Brand  making  a  pretence  of 
grief  over  his  dead  wife ;  but  at  any  rate  he  might 
have  had  the  decency  to  keep  up  appearances,  and 
not  to  be  smoking,  and  probably  drinking  with 
some  of  his  boon  companions  within  an  hour  or 
two  of  his  wife's  death. 

She  hastened  on  to  the  bedroom,  where  .the  dis- 
order of  a  sick-room  had  given  place  to  the  chill 
tidiness  of  death. 

"'It  is  not  mother,"  little  Pen  had  said,  as  they 


AUNT   PENELOPE.  2/ 

led  her  aw.ay  from  the  room ;  but  Miss  Percival 
gave  a  low  cry  of  glad  recognition  —  "Theresa  !  " 
—  as  she  came  to  the  bedside ;  for  the  still,  white 
face  had  regained  so  much  o^  the  youth  that  it  had 
lost  in  life,  that  it  might  almost  have  been  the 
young  sister  who  had  passed  out  of  Penelope's 
life  sixteen  years  ago. 

Those  ten  minutes  by  her  sister's  side  made 
nearly  as  great  a  difference  in  the  living  as  death 
had  done  in  the  dead  face ;  for  though  years  had 
not  dealt  harshly  with  Penelope  Percival,  and 
though  many  of  her  friends  maintained  that  she 
was  handsomer  now  than  she  had  been  at  eighteen, 
she  had  seemed  as  changed  to  the  eyes  of  her  sis- 
ter as  Theresa  had  done  to  her,  an,d  if,  as  some 
people  love  to  think,  the  souls  of  the  departed 
linger  yet  a  little  beside  their  mortal  habitations, 
perhaps  Theresa  Brand  may  have  gazed  into  her 
sister's  altered  face,  and  recognized  the  Penelope 
of  old,  happy  days.  But  for  me,  dear  reader,  I 
would  rather  think  of  glad  souls  rising  up  quickly 
and  going  as  Mary  did,  when  they  said,  "The 
Master  is  come,  and  calleth  for  thee."  I  would 
rather  think  that  the  rest  of  the  souls  of  the 
righteous,  which  are  in  the  hand  of  the  Lord,  is 
not  disturbed  by  the  clamor  of  mourning  and  bitter 
lamentation,  any  more  than  it  can  be  disquieted 


28  PEN. 

by  the  lack  of  them,  for  "  there  shall  no  torment 
touch  them." 

But  whether  or  no  the  soul  of  one  sister  could 
see  the  other's  face,  dbrtainly  the  sight  of  the  dead 
face  spoke  to  Penelope's  heart,  and  inspired  a  gen- 
tler feeling  for -the  children  below,  who  seemed 
now  more  the  dead  sister's  children,  with  the  blood 
of  the  Percivals  running  in  their  veins,  and  so  with 
possibilities  about  them,  than  the  children  of  Louis 
Brand,  of  whom,  of  course,  nothing  could  be  ex- 
pected ;  and,  as  she  stooped  to  kiss  the  cold  fore- 
head, she  whispered,  "  They  shall  be  my  children, 
Theresa.  I  will  be  a  mother  to  them." 

The  feeling  was  very  warm  in  her  heart  just  then, 
—  so  warm  that  it  was  not  to  be  chilled  by  passing 
that  door,  from  which  came  renewed  puffs  of  to- 
bacco smoke  and  voices  which  seemed  to  rise 
above  the  natural,  subdued  tones  of  sorrow.  It 
was  certainly  unfortunate  that  'Liza's  pity  for  the 
children  should  have  taken  the  form  of  shrimps  for 
tea,  and  those  of  a  rather  strongly  flavored  sort ; 
and  also  that  shrimps  being  a  very  unusual  luxury 
with  Tre,  and  tea-time  having,  that  day,  been  de- 
layed to  the  extremest  limits  of  human  endurance, 
she  was  discovered,  when  Miss  Percival  opened 
the  door,  entirely  engrossed  in  stripping  off  rather 
limp  brown  shells,  and  consuming  very  thick  bread 


AUNT  PENELOPE.  29 

and  butter,  and  rapidly  becoming  indued  with 
stickiness  and  shrimpiness  in  all  sorts  of  unex- 
pected places,  such  as  her  elbows  and  the  back 
of  her  neck. 

Miss  Percival  was  not  of  a  gushing  nature,  but 
she  would  have  liked  to  have  taken  the  children 
into  her  arms,  and  kissed  them,  and  told  them 
they  should  find  their  mother  again  in  her;  but 
it  was  not  to  be  expected  that  she  could  carry  out 
this  intention  on  such  a  very  shrimpy  little  object, 
and  so  perhaps  her  words  sounded  rather  cold 
and  formal,  as  she  stood  by  the  table  looking 
down  at  Tre,  at  a  safe  distance  from  sticky 
fingers. 

"  Children,"  she  said,  "  I  will  try  to  make  up 
to  you  for  your  great  loss." 

There  was  silence  after  this,  and  she  felt 
strangely  awkward  under  the  gaze  of  Tre's  great 
eyes,  as  she  sat  with  her  bread  and  butter  arrested 
on  its  way  to  her  mouth.  It  was  just  such  a  pause 
as  can  only  be  filled  by  a  kiss,  or  by  catching  a 
child  suddenly  to  one's  heart,  which,  of  course, 
was  now  out  of  the  question. 

Pen,  inopportunely,  poured  out  a  cup  of  tea, 
and  offered  it  with  a  little  hesitating  gesture. 

"  No,  thank  you,"  Miss  Percival  went  on,  clear- 
ing her  throat  and  feeling  that  sentiment  in  these 


3O  PEN. 

circumstances  was  out  of  place.  "  I  am  going  to 
take  care  of  you  now,  and  I  will  take  you  down  to 
Highfield,  and  you  will  live  with  me  and  your 
grandfather,  and  —  be  very  happy  little  girls." 
She  added  the  last  sentence  quickly,  for  Tre's 
eyes  were  opening  wider  and  wider,  with  an  ex- 
pression that  was  certainly  not  pleasure ;  and  she 
dropped  her  bread  and  butter,  and  doubled  her 
fists,  and  clinched  her  young  teeth,  with  the  evi- 
dent intention  of  resisting  sturdily  if  any  attempt 
should  be  made  to  carry  her  off  there  and  then  — 
an  idea  which  she  unjustly  suspected  her  aunt  of 
harboring. 

"  Don't  be  naughty,  Tre,"  Pen  expostulated  in 
very  trembling  tones.  She  understood  better  than 
the  child  did  what  her  aunt  meant,  and  knew  that 
it  was  not  to  be  an  immediate  carrying  off  into 
captivity ;  but  the  notion  was  none  the  less  terrible 
to  her,  and  she  could  not,  on  the  spur  of  the  mo- 
ment, conjure  up  any  appearance  of  satisfaction. 

"  I  will  come  to-morrow  and  see  your  father," 
Miss  Percival  continued,  "  and  tell  him  my  inten- 
tions. I  can't  stop  now,"  she  added  hurriedly, 
for  just  at  that  moment  a  door  was  heard  to  open 
above,  and  the  sound  of  voices  and  of  a  heavy 
step  on  the  stairs. 

"  Good-by,  I  will  come  to-morrow;"   and  she 


AUNT   PENELOPE.  31 

hastened  out,  purposely  turning  her  head  away 
and  ignoring  a  tall  man  who  stood  at  the  foot 
of  the  stairs  to  let  her  pass. 

"  I  could  not  have  spoken  civilly  to  him,"  she 
said  to  herself,  as  the  carriage  rolled  away. 

But  it  was  not  Louis  Brand  who  stood  there, 
almost  within  sweep  of  her  silken  skirt,  it  was  a 
tall  man,  with  a  broad,  kindly,  freckled,  ugly  face, 
and  rough,  dry,  red  hair  that  stood  up  in  a  mop 
over  his  head,  and  curious  light  eyes,  with  thick 
sandy  lashes  round  them. 

As  soon  as  the  door  closed  behind  Miss  Percival 
he  was  in  the  little  parlor,  and  had  gathered  up 
Tre,  shrimps  and  all,  in  his  long,  strong  arms,  and 
had  set  her  on  his  knee,  and  had  an  arm  free  in  a 
second  to  draw  Pen  in  with  them,  and  let  her 
choke  down  her  sobs  and  hide  her  face  against 
his  shoulder. 

"  My  poor,  poor,  poor,  little,  mitherless  bairns  !  " 
he  said.  And  then  almost  upset  Tre  from  her 
perch  on  his  knee,  in  hasty  efforts  to  reach  his 
pocket-handkerchief,  which,  when  it  was  un- 
earthed, large  and  yellow  and  silk  and  spotted, 
from  his  tail  pocket,  did  duty  all  round  to  wipe  up 
wet  faces,  and  they  were  soon  composed  enough 
to  return  to  the  shrimps,  while  he  did  not  despise 
the  cup  of  tea  which  Aunt  Penelope  had  rejected. 


32  PEN. 

And  by  and  by  they  even  grew  a  little  cheerful, 
and  the  sound  of  a  laugh  reached  the  silent  room 
above,  where  there  was  no  one  to  listen,  a  sound 
which  would  not  have  troubled  her  if  it  could  have 
penetrated  to  the  hearing  of  the  dead,  for  often 
and  often  she  had  greeted  that  laugh  with  a  smile 
of  relief  and  a  thought  — : "  Ah  !  there  is  Sandy 
down  there,  the  children  will  be  safe  and  happy. 
God  bless  him  !  " 


CHAPTER   III. 

A     FIRESIDE    TALK. 

BY  and  by,  when  Tre  was  in  bed,  that  first  sad 
going  to  bed  without  mother's  good-night 
kiss,  and  with  the  bitter,  little  doubt  if  it  were 
right  still  to  let  her  ask  God  to  bless  dear  mamma 
and  make  her  well ;  when  that  was  over,  Pen  came 
down  and  found,  to  her  relief,  Sandy  still  sitting 
by  the  fire  in  the  little  parlor,  staring  into  the  red 
caverns  and  holes  in  the  coals,  which  he  had 
heaped  up  with  a  lavish  profusion  very  unusual  at 
No.  37. 

There  was  mother's  footstool  close  by  his  side, 
and  Pen  sat  down  on  it  and  rested  her  elbow  on 
his  knee,  and  laid  her  head  on  it,  a  very  aching 
little  head  under  its  ruffled  plaits  of  fair  hair. 

Sandy  did  not  attempt  any  consolation  beyond 
now  and  then  putting  out  a  large,  freckled  fore- 
finger to  stroke  the  head  on  his  knee,  and  when 
a  sob  shook  the  slight  girlish  shoulders  and  he 
guessed  that  tears  were  falling,  he  dropped  the 
comforting  yellow  handkerchief  into  her  lap  and 
3 


34  PEN. 

took  no  further  notice.  I  wonder  if  Sandy 'had 
been  glib  with  consoling  words,  and  had  been  able 
to  coin  into  beautiful  phrases  the  mine  of  love  and 
pity  in  his  heart,  whether  it  would  have  done  more 
to  comfort  the  child  than  this  silent  sympathy? 

The  sobs  quieted  down  after  a  bit,  and  Sandy 
fancied  she  was  asleep,  she  sat  so  still,  and  he 
could  not  see  her  face ;  but  presently  she  stirred 
and  sat  up,  clasping  her  hands  round  her  knees 
and  looking  up  at  him,  with  a  face  wonderfully 
like  her  mother's,  Sandy  noticed,  having  never  ob- 
served the  slightest  resemblance  before ;  but  it  is 
remarkable  how  death  will  sometimes  stamp  a  like- 
ness on  the  survivors,  which  the  closest  intercourse 
in  life  has  failed  to  do. 

"  Sandy,"  she  said,  "  do  you  think  father  will  let 
us  go?" 

"Go  where?" 

"  To  Highfield  with  Aunt  Penelope.  She  says 
she  is  going  to  take  us  to  live  there  with  her  and 
grandpapa.  Tre  was  naughty  about  it  just  now 
when  I  was  undressing  her,  and  she  said  she  would 
not  go,  and  that  she  hates  Anut  Penelope.  And  I 
scolded  her  as  well  as  I  could  and  said  it  was  very 
kind  of  Aunt  Penelope  to  want  to  have  us,  and 
that  Highfield  was  a  beautiful  place,  and  that 
mother  loved  it  better  than  any  other ;  and  then 


A   FIRESIDE  TALK.  35 

Tre  cried,  and  said  she  wanted  to  go  with  mother, 
and  oh  !  Sandy,  I  feel  every  bit  the  same  as  she 
does,  only  twenty  times  worse." 

Sandy  whistled  softly  in  a  sympathizing  way, 
very  encouraging  to  confidences,  and  Pen  went 
on  :  "  I  Ve  been  thinking  and  thinking  and  trying 
to  make  up  my  mind  to  it,  and  to  think  I  should 
like  it,  and  be  happy,  and  that  it  would  be  much 
better  for  Tre,  and  that  she  would  grow  up  a 
really  proper  young  lady,  not  like  me,  you  know, 
Sandy." 

A  little  indignant  grunt  of  dissent  from  Sandy 
broke  in  here,  but  she  did  not  stay  to  argue  the 
point. 

"  I  think  Tre  would  very  soon  be  like  those  chil- 
dren we  used  to  see  in  the  park,  when  you  took 
us  up  there  last  spring.  When  her  hair  is  nicely 
done  and  she  has  her  best  frock  on,  she  looks  just 
like  them.  I  know  she  is  rough  sometimes,  and 
Aunt  Penelope  shudders  when  she  comes  tum- 
bling into  the  room  anyhow,  and  her  hands  will 
get  dirty  and  her  hair  untidy ;  but  still  she  is 
very  young  and  may  improve,"  said  Pen,  with  all 
the  wisdom  and  experience  of  fifteen,  at  which 
great  age  improvement  is,  of  course,  out  of  the 
question. 

"  Mother  has  told  me  so  much  about  Highfield, 


36  PEN. 

and  always  how  nice  it  is,  and  how  pretty,  and  all 
that ;  but  I  always  felt  to  hate  it  somehow,  and 
to  think  it  must  be  hard  and  cold  and  dull,  and 
not  a  bit  like  home." 

And  yet  all  the  child's  idea  of  home  was,  as 
Sandy  remembered,  marvelling,  this  poor,  little, 
shabby  house  in  Purton  Street,  or  one  at  Netting 
Hill  only  a  few  shades  better,  where  poverty  was 
always  casting  its  chill  shadow,  and  where  the 
mother's  sweet  face  was  the  only  brightness,  and 
that  of  sunset's  most  pathetic  light  telling  of 
coming  night. 

"  I  wonder  if  mother  would  wish  us  to  go  ? 
She  never  said  anything  about  it,  but  always  that 
I  was  to  take  care  of  Tre,  and  comfort  father ; 
and  I  don't  think  Aunt  Penelope  likes  father,  so 
I  don't  suppose  she  would  want  him  to  come  to 
Highfield." 

"  Perhaps  not,"  assented  Sandy,  who  had  been 
now  and  then  let  behind  the  scenes,  and  witnessed 
the  antipathy  that  the  lazy,  undisciplined  artist 
cherished  for  his  stately,  conventional  sister-in-law  ; 
and  it  did  not  require  much  penetration  to  divine 
that  the  antipathy  was  mutual. 

"  I  wish  I  had  asked  her  !  I  wish  I  knew  !  "  said 
Pen,  with  such  great,  passionate  yearning  in  her 
eyes  and  on  her  lips  as  might,  so  Sandy  thought, 


A   FIRESIDE  TALK.  37 

almost  have  pierced  through  the  dark  veil  and 
found  the  mother,  even  in  the  sweet  unbroken 
peace  she  had  reached. 

And  Sandy  found  it  so  hard  to  know  what  to 
advise,  or  to  guess  what  was  in  the  mother's  heart 
when  she  went  away  and  left  her  little  girls  to  a 
father  who,  to  speak  in  the  mildest  terms,  was  so 
unsatisfactory,  as  that  mother  herself  had  surely  by 
bitter  experience  cause  to  know.  There  was  no 
doubt  that,  from  a  purely  sensible  point  of  view, 
the  very  best  thing  for  the  children  would  be  to 
be  taken  clear  away  from  Purton  Street ;  if  Pen's 
eyes  had  not  been  fixed  on  Sandy's  face  he  would 
have  said  so  in  a  moment.  Louis  Brand  was  not 
at  all  the  person  to  take  care  of  the  children, 
Sandy  could  see  that  plain  enough,  though  the 
two  men  had  been  friends  now  for  several  years. 
Though  Mrs.  Brand  had  been  ill  so  long,  and  lat- 
terly so  ill  that  she  did  not  apparently  take  any 
active  part  in  the  management  of  the  house,  it 
was  wonderful  how  now,  directly  her  presence  was 
withdrawn,  an  indescribable  air  of  discomfort  and 
want  of  gear  had  crept  into  the  scene.  It  was  not 
that  it  had  ever  been  a  cut-and-dried  clockwork 
establishment  such  as  Aunt  Penelope  loved  to  keep 
going  at  Highfield,  where  everything  moved  with 
perfect  precision,  and  where  five  minutes  lost  was 


38  PEN. 

a  crime,  and  half  an  inch  out  of  position  an  enor- 
mity ;  it  would  have  been  an  impossibility  to  ac- 
commodate Louis  Brand  to  such  conditions ;  but 
still  there  had  been  some  rule,  some  order  main- 
tained in  the  little  house,  a  centre  round  which 
things  had  turned ;  a  hand,  though  a  very  light 
one,  on  the  reins ;  a  court  of  appeal,  very  gentle 
and  tender,  yet  whose  decisions  were  final. 

Perhaps  if  Mrs.  Brand  had  still  been  there,  if 
the  silence  in  the  room  above  had  been  that  of 
sleep  instead  of  death,  Sandy  would  not  have  no- 
ticed that  the  tea-things  were  left  on  the  side- 
board, or  that  the  front  door  was  ajar,  and  that 
'Liza  had  slipped  out  to  the  milk-shop  round  the 
corner  to  tell  the  events  of  the  day  to  a  sym- 
pathizing audience,  leaving  a  tallow  candle  on 
the  table  in  the  passage  flaring  and  guttering  in  the 
draught ;  but  still  straws  show  the  direction  of  the 
current,  and  these  and  half  a  dozen  other  almost 
imperceptible  trifles  made  it  evident  to  Sandy  that 
there  was  no  longer  a  mistress  in  the  house.  He 
had  a  sort  of  fidgety  feeling  of  responsibility  which 
he  never  had  felt  before,  as  if  he  ought  to  give 
'Liza  a  bit  of  his  mind,  or  offer  to  carry  down  the 
tea-things,  or  insist  on  Pen's  going  to  bed ;  any- 
how he  could  not  make  up  his  mind  to  leave  the 
child  sitting  there  by  herself,  there  was  something 


A   FIRESIDE  TALK.  39 

so  very  lonely  in  the  little  figure  by  the  hearth, 
where  the  fire  was  burning  low. 

Sandy  could  only  just  remember  his  own  mother, 
and  that  with  no  particularly  tender  feeling,  and 
her  death  had  not,  as  far  as  he  recollected,  cost 
him  any  acute  pain,  except  so  far  as  concerned  the 
pair  of  new  boots  in  which  he  was  taken  to  her 
funeral,  and  which  were  so  tight,  that  they  im- 
pressed the  scene  on  his  memory  effectually ;  but 
he  felt  the  loss  for  little  Pen  sharply,  in  some 
points  perhaps  with  an  intensity  beyond  her  own, 
being  more  conscious  maybe  of  what  it  meant  to 
her  and  Tre. 

Pen's  head  had  sunk  down  again  on  his  knee 
when  he  could  find  no  answer  to  her  question, 
"Would  mother  wish  us  to  go?"  so  Sandy  could 
ponder  the  matter  without  prejudice  from  her 
eager  eyes. 

Ten  years  ago  he  had  come  across  Louis  Brand 
in  a  small  village  in  North  Devon,  where  the  art- 
ist was  sketching,  and  where  Sandy  was  fishing  and 
idling  and  taking  holiday.  The  men  had  been 
thrown  together  constantly,  and  that  strange  thing, 
friendship,  had  sprung  up  between  them. 

Love  is  curious  and  unaccountable  enough,  but 
then  it  is  allowed  to  be  a  madness,  so  it  is  not  to 
be  argued  about ;  but  friendship  is  supposed  to  be 


40  PEN. 

a  reasonable  and  calm  exchange  of  regard  and  af- 
fection founded  on  mutual  respect  and  sympathy 
of  tastes.  As  a  rule  it  is  nothing  of  the  kind. 
That  saying  that  you  can  know  a  man  by  his 
friends  is  as  untrue  as  many  other  old  sayings  that 
pretend  to  be  of  universal  application.  The  most 
incongruous  natures  are  yoked  together  by  friend- 
ship ;  the  ox  and  the  ass  jog  along  side  by  side, 
out  of  step,  to  the  end  of  the  long  furrow  of  life ; 
and  the  astonishing  thing  is  that  this  union  should 
last  when  it  is  purely  voluntary  and  could  be 
severed  on  either  side  at  a  moment's  notice. 
They  are  not  born  to  it  like  relations;  they  are 
not  irrevocably  pledged  to  it  like  married  people ; 
each  sees  the  other's  faults,  he  by  no  means  exag- 
gerates his  virtues ;  he  does  not  take  his  advice ; 
he  disapproves  of  his  politics,  his  religious  opin- 
ions, his  style  of  dress,  his  personal  appearance, 
his  behavior ;  but  friends  they  remain  to  the  end 
of  the  chapter,  the  usual  end  of  this  mortal  chap- 
ter, till  death  them  do  part ;  and  then  the  survi- 
vor carries  the  ache  and  the  want  about  with  him 
perhaps  as  long  as  or  longer  than  a  lovesick 
swain  carries  that  broken  heart  of  his  of  which 
we  hear  so  much,  and  the  torments  of  which  are 
described,  from  every  point  of  view,  in  prose  and 
poetry,  in  every  language  under  the  sun,  and  call 


A   FIRESIDE  TALK.  4! 

forth  sympathy  on  all  sides ;  while  but  little  can  be 
spared  for  the  pains  of  disappointed  or  bereaved 
friendship,  which,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  are  often 
more  severe  and  generally  more  real. 

So  Sandy  Maclaren  and  Louis  Brand  became 
friends.  Sandy,  simple  and  real  and  honest  and 
true,  and  Louis  Brand  —  well,  perhaps  not  exactly 
the  reverse ;  but  in  describing  his  character,  how- 
ever favorably,  those  are  not  the  words  you  would 
pick  out.  But  I  never  could  judge  Louis  Brand  as 
hardly  as  some  have  done,  for  his  wife  loved  him 
so ;  and  especially  just  now,  when  his  loyal  cham- 
pion is  silent,  I  would  treat  him  tenderly. 

The  friendship  was  renewed  when  the  men  met 
again  in  London,  and  Louis  Brand  took  Sandy 
home  with  him  one  evening  and  introduced  him  to 
his  wife,  an  honor  that  was  not  accorded  to  many 
of  the  acquaintances  that  Louis  picked  up  during 
his  sketching  expeditions.  Sandy  remembered  that 
evening  so  well,  every  detail  came  back  to  his 
mind  as  he  sat  with  Pen's  head  on  his  knee.  It 
had  taken  him  by  surprise  that  Louis  Brand  had  a 
wife  at  all,  but  he  never  had  imagined  such  a  wife 
"as  this,  such  a  gracious,  gentle,  lady  wife ;  and  as 
for  little  five-year-old  Pen,  the  moment  she  put 
her  little  hand  in  his,  and  committed  to  his  care 
the  broken  arm  of  her  doll,  he  became  her  de- 


42  PEN. 

voted  slave ;  and  though  the  arrival  of  Tre  on 
the  scene  enlarged  the  number  of  his  sovereign 
ladies,  Pen  still  retained  her  supremacy  in  Sandy's 
heart. 

They  were  living  up  at  Netting  Hill  at  that  time, 
when  Sandy  first  saw  Pen  and  her  mother ;  circum- 
stances were  better  then ;  Brand  was  working  more 
steadily,  and  there  was  a  certain  hopefulness  and 
expectation  of  better  times  coming,  which  died  out 
in  later  days.  Looking  back,  Sandy  could  see  how 
by  degrees  they  had  come  down ;  one  by  one  little 
indulgences  had  been  given  up,  always,  he  remem- 
bered with  a  sigh,  those  which  concerned  Mrs. 
Brand  and  Pen  went  first.  The  change  to  the  sea 
in  the  summer  was  a  thing  of  the  past  even  then, 
but  Louis  Brand  was  of  course  obliged,  in  the  way 
of  business,  to  go  off  sketching  in  lovely  scenery 
and  refreshing  air.  Sometimes  Sandy  would  notice 
that  Pen  ran  to  open  the  door  when  he  came,  and 
that  Mrs.  Brand's  face  was  more  tired-looking  and 
her  hands  rough  and  discolored,  and  then  he 
guessed  that  the  servant  was  a  luxury  they  were 
trying  to  dispense  with.  And  then  the  only  way 
to  help,  though  he  would  gladly  have  cleaned  the 
knives  and  carried  up  coal-scuttles,  was  to  keep  out 
of  the  way,  so  as  not  to  make  any  extra  work,  and 
to  invite  Louis  Brand  to  dine  with  him  as  often  as 


A   FIRESIDE   TALK.  43 

he  could,  knowing  that  it  was  any  discomfort  to 
her  husband  that  Mrs.  Brand  felt  most  acutely. 
The  only  time  Sandy  ever  saw  her  break  down  was 
when  there  had  been  some  failure  over  the  dinner, 
and  then  her  lips  trembled  and  her  eyes  filled  up 
with  tears. 

"  I  am  such  a  wretchedly  bad  cook,"  she  said. 
"  Why  don't  they  teach  girls  something  useful  at 
those  schools?" 

And  Sandy  was  glad  to  remember  how  she  was 
comforted  then  by  her  husband  holding  those  poor, 
little,  hard-worked  hands  and  recalling  those  old 
school  days  when  she  had  learned  of  him,  not  to 
draw  —  she  never  could  draw  a  straight  line  nor  a 
smooth  curve  —  but  that  more  beautiful  art,  that 
nobler  science  of  love,  at  which  she  was  an  apt 
pupil ;  while  Sandy  drew  little  Pen  away  and  pre- 
tended to  be  as  absorbed  as  she  was  in  the  spar- 
rows on  the  window-sill.  There  were  other  times, 
I  am  afraid,  when  Mrs.  Brand  had  not  such  com- 
fort, when  her  husband  added  to  her  burden  by 
his  thoughtlessness  or  discontent ;  but  Sandy  only 
guessed  dimly  at  these  occasions,  from  a  word  let 
slip  by  Pen,  or  a  half-joking  self-accusation  by 
Louis  Brand  himself;  never  from  Mrs.  Brand,  who, 
I  do  not  fancy,  ever  even  to  herself  blamed  her 
husband. 


44  PEN. 

When  they  were  moving  down  to  Dalston,  Sandy 
was  changing  his  lodgings  at  the  same  time,  and 
found  some  in  a  street  hard  by  Purton  Street,  and, 
after  that,  hardly  a  day  passed  without  his  coming 
to  the  Brands  on  one  pretext  or  another,  and  lat- 
terly without  any  pretext  at  all. 

Pen  was  half  asleep  by  the  time  that  Sandy's 
thoughts  had  come  so  far  in  his  review  of  his 
friendship  with  the  Brands.  At  any  rate  strange 
dream  threads  were  being  woven  in  with  her 
thoughts  when  Sandy  stirred  and  gave  a  great  yawn 
and  rubbed  his  eyes,  which  had  certainly  looked 
quite  wide  awake  the  minute  before,  as  he  gazed 
over  Pen's  head  into  the  fire. 

"  Hollo  !  "  he  said,  "  I  shall  be  asleep,  if  I  sit 
here  much  longer." 

And  Pen  got  up,  looking  at  him  with  eyes  that 
were  quite  unconscious  how  near  they  had  been 
to  sleep  themselves,  and  rather  reproachful  to  him 
for  thinking  of  such  a  thing  as  sleep  in  all  the 
sorrow. 

"You  see  I'm  such  a  sleepy  fellow,"  he  said 
apologetically,  "  and  besides,"  with  a  sudden  bright 
idea,  "  I  want  to  be  up  with  the  earliest  of  larks 
to-morrow  to  go  and  get  some  flowers  for  —  her. 
Would  you  like  to  come  too?  but  you  will  not  be 
awake." 


A   FIRESIDE  TALK.  45 

She  gave  a  little  indignant  gesture  disclaiming  all 
possibility  of  sleep. 

"  Well,  anyhow  you  must  go  right  up  to  bed  now 
or  I  won't  take  you.  Never  mind  about  sleeping, 
but  go  to  bed  and  I  '11  see  what  the  signer  is  about 
before  I  turn  in.  Off  with  you,  little  Pen,  I  think 
I  know  what  she  would  say  to  such  a  little  white 
face." 

And  unwillingly  Pen  was  persuaded  to  go  up  to 
the  room  where  Tre  lay  sleeping,  as  sweetly  as 
if  there  were  no  such  things  as  sorrow  or  death 
to  awake  to  by  and  by;  while  Sandy  turned 
into  the  studio,  with  the  comforting  conviction 
that  soon  another  head  would  be  sleeping  be- 
side Tre's,  equally  unconscious  of  loneliness  and 
motherlessness. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

FLOWERS    FOR    HER. 

IT  hardly  seemed  more  than  a  few  minutes  to 
Pen  from  the  time  when  she  had  heard  the 
studio  door  close  and  had  thrown  herself  down 
half  undressed  on  the  bed  by  sleeping  Tre,  and 
she  was  not  conscious  of  having  slept,  when  she 
was  roused  by  a  low  knocking  at  the  door,  and 
started  up  with  the  dim  feeling  that  mother  was 
wanting  her,  followed  instantaneously  by  the  bitter 
memory  that  mother  would  never  want  her  any 
more. 

"  Pen,"  said  Sandy's  voice,  "  it  is  four  o'clock 

and  I  am  just  going  to  start,  but  I  dare  say  you  're 

too  tired,  and  I  will  bring  you  some  flowers." 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  I  'd  rather  come." 

It  was  quite  dark,  and,  as  Pen  struck  a  light  and 

dressed  herself,   she  had  a  numb,   dazed  sort  of 

feeling  that  night  and  day  must  needs  be  all  mixed 

up   and   confused    now   that    mother   was    dead. 

Neither  did  she  wonder  at  Sandy  having  been  able 

to  enter  the  house  at  that  hour,  though  she  did  not 


FLOWERS   FOR   HER.  47 

know  that  the  talk  in  the  studio  had  gone  on  so 
long  that  Sandy  had  only  had  an  hour's  sleep  on 
the  sofa  and  had  never  gone  home  at  all.  But 
when  the  world  is  all  turned  topsy-turvy  why 
should  one  be  surprised  at  anything? 

She  dressed  as  quickly  as  she  could  and  went 
down,  finding  Sandy  waiting  for  her  in  the  passage 
with  a  large  plaid  to  wrap  round  her ;  and  he  took 
her  hand  as  they  passed  out  into  the  street  and  put 
it  under  his  arm,  an  action  that  made  her  feel  more 
grown  up  than  she  had  ever  done  before,  and  pain- 
fully conscious  that  her  steps  were  shorter  than  his 
long  stride,  and  that  she  fell  out  of  pace  with  him 
every  now  and  then,  and  that  it  was  beneath  her 
dignity  to  give  a  little  run  occasionally,  as  she 
might  have  done  if  he  had  been  merely  holding 
her  hand. 

How  strange  and  unnatural  the  streets  looked 
too  ;  so  still,  it  seemed  as  if  the  whole  world  might 
be  dead  like  mother. 

"  Ne'er  saw  I,  never  felt  a  calm  so  deep, 
Dear  God,  the  very  houses  seem  asleep, 
And  all  that  mighty  heart  is  lying  still." 

The  gas  lamps  seemed  to  look  down  with  sur- 
prise at  these  two  untimely  disturbers  of  their  soli- 
tude, and  the  tramp  of  a  policeman's  steps  coming 


48  PEN. 

down  a  side  street  had  quite  a  solemn  and  awful 
sound  in  her  ears.  She  could  hardly  recognize  the 
familiar  streets  where  by  day  she  knew  every  shop 
and  turn,  and  could  thread  her  way,  without  a 
thought,  among  the  hurrying  crowds,  as  she  went 
about  her  small  marketings ;  but  now  that  the 
shops  were  all  closed  and  the  crowds  had  dis- 
appeared, she  would  have  been  at  a  loss  to  find 
even  the  houses  she  knew  best. 

As  they  went  on,  the  world  no  longer  seemed  in- 
habited only  by  themselves  and  stray  policemen, 
strange,  uncanny-looking  figures  passed  them,  night 
birds,  homeless  some  of  them,  tattered  bundles  of 
rags  starting  up  from  dark  entries  and  hurrying 
away,  as  if  Pen's  pitiful  young  eyes  had  been  a 
policeman's  lantern  warning  them  to  move  on; 
then  there  were  some  late  revellers,  homeward 
bound,  some  of  them  unsteady  in  their  gait  and 
uncertain  which  side  they  would  pass ;  but  by  de- 
grees a  more  wholesome  element  was  mixed  with 
these,  workmen  on  their  way  to  their  work,  with 
their  tools  on  their  shoulders,  gathering  round  the 
early  coffee  stalls,  which  looked  cheerful  and  warm 
with  their  stoves  and  steaming  cups  of  coffee, 
which  likewise  smelt  nice  and  fragrant  as  Pen  and 
Sandy  passed  by. 

They   were   quite    beyond    Pen's   geographical 


FLOWERS   FOR   HER.  49 

knowledge  by  this  time,  and  indeed  she  had  no 
idea  where  they  were  going  to  get  flowers  for 
"  her,"  beyond  a  general  idea  that  it  must  be 
somewhere  in  the  country,  perhaps  that  place 
where  Sandy  took  her  and  Tre  last  spring,  where 
there  were  bluebells,  and  a  cuckoo  calling,  and 
a  nest  with  large-mouthed,  ugly,  little  birds  in  it. 
But  Sandy  kept  on  steadily  with  that  loose  swing- 
ing stride  of  his,  and  Pen  was  a  good,  little  walker 
and  not  easily  tired.  Now  they  came  to  some- 
thing awake  and  stirring,  the  newspaper  offices 
were  full  of  life  and  movement,  and,  outside,  rows 
of  carts  were  waiting  to  carry  off  the  papers  the 
moment  they  were  out  of  the  press.  Otherwise 
the  houses  were  dark,  except  here  and  there, 
where  a  light  shone  out  of  an  upstairs  window, 
telling  of  early  rising,  or  perhaps,  late  watching  by 
the  sick.  Then  carts  began  to  pass,  clattering 
milk- carts  and  wagons  loaded  high  with  cabbages, 
and  with  a  fresh  country  look  about  their  smock- 
frocked  drivers,  and  these  became  more  frequent 
as  they  approached  Covent  Garden  market, 
where,  though  it  was  still  dark  and  the  stars  shin- 
ing overhead,  life  seemed  to  have  begun  in  ear- 
nest, carts  and  wagons  in  all  directions,  with 
steaming  horses  tossing  their  nose- bags  recklessly 
into  the  faces  of  passers-by;  country-women  in 
4 


50  PEN. 

print  sun-bonnets  presiding  over  great  stacks  of 
wallflower  and  pyramids  of  tulips,  surrounded  by 
crowds  of  eager,  chattering  flower-girls,  with  their 
sharp  London  voices,  and  faces  as  sharp  and  as 
uncountrified.  Over  there  the  watercress  wagons 
are  unloading,  and  there  the  noise  is  louder  than 
anywhere,  for  the  Irish  brogue  mixes  largely  in  the 
clamor,  and  the  bareheaded  women,  with  small 
plaid  shawls  over  their  shoulders  and  big  aprons, 
push  and  jostle  one  another ;  while  small  girls  dive 
into  the  mtlee  under  the  elbows  of  their  elders, 
some  of  them  so  small  and  white  and  scantily 
clothed,  and  yet  with  such  a  grim  resolution  to 
make  the  very  utmost  of  the  halfpence  they  clutch 
in  their  hands,  and  fight  and  shriek  and  struggle 
with  the  best  of  them. 

One  of  the  women  had  set  down  her  baby  on 
the  outskirts  of  the  crowd,  behind  some  heaped- 
up  baskets,  and  the  weird  black-eyed  imp  had 
managed  to  roll  or  crawl  out  of  the  friendly  shel- 
ter, and  had  been  kicked  or  trodden  on  by  some 
passers-by,  and  had  set  up  a  desolate,  little  yell, 
just  as  Pen  and  Sandy  came  up,  a  cry  not  likely 
to  reach  the  mother  in  the  thick  of  the  crowd 
round  the  pump,  where  the  watercresses  were 
being  washed. 

Sandy  had   the   little  thing   up  in  a  moment. 


FLOWERS   FOR   HER.  51 

"Hollo,  old  man,  what's  to  pay?"  and  held  it 
aloft  to  see  if  any  one  would  claim  the  odd, 
little  specimen,  but  no  one  seemed  inclined  to 
volunteer. 

"What  am  I  to  do  with  the  brat?  Who's  to 
find  a  mother  for  it  among  all  these?" 

The  child  was  quite  quiet  in  his  arms,  and  had 
taken  a  firm  hold  of  his  coat  with  one  grimy,  little 
claw,  but  its  face  puckered  up  and  a  whimper 
began  when  Sandy  offered  to  put  it  down  on  a 
heap  of  straw ;  and  as  they  were  stopping  up  the 
gangway  and  several  busy  passers-by  had  already 
rather  indignantly  jostled  against  them,  there  was 
nothing  for  it  but  to  go  on,  little  ragamuffin  and 
all,  past  the  great  fragrant  hampers  of  violets, 
primroses,  cowslips  and  daffodils,  to  where  the 
boxes  of  rarer  flowers  were  discharging  their  con- 
tents almost  in  as  great  profusion :  sheafs  of  pure 
arums  and  eucharis  lilies,  which  have  something 
sacred  in  their  beauty;  white  azalea  of  such 
fragile  loveliness  that  it  seems  meant  for  heaven 
alone ;  camellias  which  are  altogether  as  earthly 
as  azalea  is  heavenly,  and  suggest  turnip  flowers, 
forced  turkey,  and  Strauss's  valses ;  roses,  primulas, 
spiraea,  maidenhair.  Pen  stood  in  a  perfect  daze 
of  delight  at  all  the  beauty,  with  tears  slowly 
welling  up  into  her  eyes,  partly  pleasure  and  partly 


52  PEN. 

with  the  prick  of  the  thorn  that  would  lie  hid  in 
all  her  pleasure  for  many  a  day,  "  if  only  mother 
could  see  it !  "  It  would  have  been  enough  for 
her  merely  to  look,  she  had  been  used  all  her  life 
to  be  satisfied  with  the  sight  of  pretty  things  with- 
out any  thought  of  possession,  and  it  quite  took 
her  breath  away  the  lavish  manner  in  which  Sandy 
filled  the  empty  basket  he  had  brought,  with  flow- 
ers every  one  of  which  would  have  been  cherished 
for  days  with  scrupulous  care,  and  treasured  even 
when  its  beauty  was  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  its 
scent  a  memory. 

But  when  their  purchases  were  finished,  and 
even  Sandy  thought  they  had  enough  flowers, 
the  baby  still  remained  on  their  hands  and  pre- 
vented their  immediate  return ;  so  Sandy  found 
an  out-of-the-way  corner  and  a  seat  on  the  shafts 
of  a  large  yellow  wagon,  and  the  baby  was  pro- 
vided with  a  bun  from  the  coffee-stall,  and  Pen 
and  Sandy  did  not  find  a  cup  of  coffee  and  a  bun 
come  amiss,  though  Pen  could  hardly  be  persuaded 
to  put  down  her  basket  of  flowers  even  for  the 
few  minutes  it  took  to  consume  the  repast. 

The  dawn  was  stealing  cold  and  wan  into  the 
sky,  making  the  gas  look  dull  and  dissipated,  and 
Pen  was  glad  to  wrap  the  shawl  tightly  round  her, 
as  the  air  was  chill.  The  bun  and  Sandy's  strong, 


FLOWERS   FOR  HER.  53 

patient  arms  seemed  to  produce  a  wonderfully 
soothing  effect,  for  before  long  his  grubby,  little 
burden  was  fast  asleep,  with  one  hand  grasping 
the  half-eaten  bun,  and  the  other  still  clutching 
Sandy's  coat-sleeve,  who,  with  his  hat  at  the  back 
of  his  head,  and  a  smear  across  his  forehead,  was 
certainly  not  a  very  attractive  object  to  look  at. 
But  Pen,  from  her  seat  on  the  opposite  shaft  of 
the  wagon,  seemed  to  find  a  sort  of  fascination 
about  him,  and  kept  watching  him  so  fixedly,  with 
her  great  sad  eyes,  that  he  grew  quite  embarrassed 
at  last,  and  extricated  one  hand  from  the  baby  to 
run  his  fingers  through  his  hair  and  straighten 
his  hat. 

"  Hollo  !  "  he  said,  "I  did  n't  spend  much  time 
in  tittivating  before  I  started.  Wants  a  razor, 
eh?" 

But  Pen  was  not  thinking  of  his  outer  man,  at 
any  rate  not  in  disparagement,  for  she  said,  "  I 
was  thinking,  Sandy,  and  wondering  why  you  never 
had  a  wife." 

He  laughed,  and  then  grew  red  all  over  to  the 
very  ears,  blushing  like  a  school-girl. 

"  What  put  that  in  your  head?  " 

"  I  was  thinking,"  she  went  on,  looking  at  him 
so  straight  over  the  arums  and  lilies  in  the  bas- 
ket in  her  arms,  without  a  cloud  coming  over 


54  PEN. 

the  calm  serenity  of  her  earnest  eyes,  or  a  stain 
of  color  into  the  pure  paleness  of  her  cheeks, 
"  that  if  I  were  older,  you  might  have  married 
me,  and  taken  care  of  me  and  Tre  instead  of 
father." 


CHAPTER    V. 

LOUIS  BRAND'S  CHILDREN. 

MISS  PERCIVAL  certainly  felt  that  she  had 
got  through  her  interview  with  "  that 
artist  fellow"  with  dignity  and  success,  and  she 
found  him  much  more  reasonable  and  less  theatri- 
cal than  she  had  expected.  Gratitude,  of  course, 
she  did  not  expect,  though  after  all  that  had  passed 
one  would  have  thought  that  he  would  have  been 
almost  overwhelmed  at  the  generosity  of  the  offer 
to  take  his  two  daughters  entirely  off  his  hands, 
and  educate  and  bring  them  up  like  ladies ;  and 
he  only  stood  opposite  to  her  in  the  squalid,  little 
room,  with  no  readable  expression  on  his  dusky, 
pale  face,  with  his  dark  eyes  fixed  so  persistently 
on  one  particular  spot  on  the  table-cloth,  that  Miss 
Percival  found  herself  continually  looking  at  the 
same  place,  where  the  rim  of  a  damp  cup  had  left 
a  sort  of  crescent-moon  mark,  and  a  spot  of  ink 
added  a  star. 

From  time  to  time  he  bowed  his  head  and  gave 
an  indistinct  murmur  of  what  Miss  Percival  inter- 


56  PEN. 

preted  as  assent ;  and  she  was  so  far  impressed 
with  his  sensible  acquiescence  in  all  her  arrange- 
ments, that  she  refrained  from  doing  more  than 
hinting  that,  when  the  girls  had  once  been  received 
at  Highfield,  no  further  interference  with  them  on 
their  father's  part  could  be  tolerated,  and  that 
Colonel  Percival  would  be  willing  to  assist  him  to 
a  reasonable  extent  at  a  distance. 

"  Of  course,"  she  said,  "  all  details  can  be  ar- 
ranged later  on."  And  she  added  after  a  mo- 
ment's hesitation,  "I  —  my  father  will  be  pleased 
if  you  will  stop  a  day  or  two  at  Highfield  after  the 
funeral." 

He  gave  a  quick  look  up  at  her  just  then  from 
the  crescent  mark  on  the  cloth,  and  there  was  a 
tightening  of  the  lips  over  his  teeth,  which  to  a 
reader  of  expression  might  have  suggested  mis- 
chief, but  Miss  Percival  was  short-sighted,  and 
enjoyed  the  blessing  or  the  curse  of  short  sight, 
that  she  did  not  see  the  premonitory  symptoms 
of  human  volcanoes,  and,  as  most  of  these  vol- 
canoes subside  without  coming  to  an  eruption,  I 
think  perhaps  short  sight  is  more  of  a  blessing,  as 
it  saves  its  owner  from  needless  apprehension.  It 
would  have  done  Miss  Percival  no  immediate  good 
to  have  known  that,  just  across  that  narrow  table, 
was  a  man  who  would  have  liked  to  wring  her 


LOUIS  BRAND'S  CHILDREN.  57 

neck ;  who  felt  that  hesitating  invitation  as  more 
of  an  insult  even  than  offering  to  bring  his  daugh- 
ters up  as  ladies,  and  the  hint  that  this  could  only 
be  possible  by  separation  from  their  father.  He 
had  been  selfish  and  thoughtless  enough,  but  he 
had  known  all  along  that  his  wife  had  given  up 
much  for  love  of  him,  and  that  she  had  craved 
and  fretted  after  the  old  home,  though  I  do  not 
suppose  he  knew  one  hundredth  part  how  much. 
In  the  early  days  of  their  marriage,  when  there 
were  possibilities  painting  themselves  constantly 
in  rose-colored  brightness  before  hopeful  young 
minds ;  when  it  was  quite  impossible  to  imagine 
hearts  remaining  stony  forever;  when  any  post 
might  bring  a  letter  in  a  loved  writing ;  when  to- 
morrow must  needs  be  brighter  than  to-day,  she 
used  to  describe,  with  loving  minuteness,  all  the 
rooms  and  gardens  at  Highfield.  "You  would 
like  that  picture,  Louis."  "You  would  love  that 
deep  window-seat  and  the  old  colored  panes  in 
the  glass,"  till  at  last  he  grew  weary  of  these  far- 
away beauties,  when  everything  around  them  was 
poor  and  mean,  and  he  let  her  see  that  it  bored 
him ;  and  then  she  took  to  painting  them  over  to 
herself  in  her  long  and  frequent  solitudes,  taking 
one  room  after  another  methodically,  and  remem- 
bering every  picture,  chair,  or  ornament,  even 


58  PEN. 

going  so  far  as  the  books  on  the  shelves  before 
which  she  used  to  kneel  at  family  prayers,  and 
with  childish,  wandering  thoughts  study  the  letter- 
ing on  the  backs  of  the  big  Encyclopaedia,  Ast. 
Bom.,  Bom.  Bur.,  Bur.  Cli.,  and  so  on. 

By  and  by  she  found  a  ready  and  never-wearied 
listener  in  Pen,  who  used  to  draw  up  her  stool  and 
rest  her  elbows  on  her  mother's  lap,  and  her  chin 
in  her  hands,  and  look  up  into  the  smiling,  ex- 
pectant face  above,  and  say,  "  Now  tell  me  about 
the  morning  room  at  Highfield  !  "  and  would  enter, 
quite  gravely,  into  the  discussion  as  to  whether  the 
pattern  of  the  curtains  were  convolvulus  or  jessa- 
mine, and  whether  the  high-backed  chair  stood  be- 
tween the  windows  or  in  the  corner  of  the  room. 

Highfield  was  like  fairyland  to  little  Pen  when 
described  by  mother,  but  it  was  very  different  when 
Aunt  Penelope  proposed  to  take  her  into  it. 

The  only  point  on  which  Miss  Percival  detected 
any  difference  of  opinion  in  the  inscrutable  dark 
face  opposite  her,  was  when  she  took  it  for  granted 
that  the  little  girls  would  not  be  present  at  their 
mother's  funeral.  She  herself  had  not  been  pres- 
ent when  her  mother  was  buried ;  it  was  not 
among  the  traditions  of  the  Percival  family  that 
ladies  should  be  present  on  these  occasions.  They 
were  to  have  no  share  in  the  comfort  and  the  hope 


LOUIS  BRAND'S  CHILDREN.  59 

of  the  burial  service,  but  to  do  their  mourning  at 
home,  and  be  ready  in  composure  and  crape  to 
receive  the  funeral  party  on  their  return.  But 
Louis  Brand  had  been  apparently  so  acquiescent 
on  every  other  point  that  Miss  Percival  did  not 
contest  this,  though  she  felt  convinced  that  there 
would  be  an  undignified  display  of  hysterical  grief; 
but  she  resolved  that  she  would  so  far  sacrifice 
her  personal  feeling  as  to  be  present  herself,  so  as 
to  be  a  check  on  any  unnecessary  or  theatrical 
exhibition. 

Her  interview  with  Pen  was  not  so  satisfactory. 
She  found  her  in  the  little  back-room  having  a 
lining  tried  on  by  a  fussy,  little  dressmaker,  who 
joined  freely  in  the  conversation  with  her  mouth 
full  of  pins,  in  spite  of  Miss  Percival's  crushing  in- 
attention to  her  remarks.  Miss  Percival  had  been 
revolving  the  question  of  the  mourning  in  her  mind 
as  she  came  along,  debating  whether  she  would 
send  her  maid  down  to  see  after  it,  or  put  it  in  the 
hands  of  her  dressmaker  in  Maddox  Street,  but 
both  of  these  worthies  were  too  elegant  to  imagine 
comfortably  in  Purton  Street.  And  when  Miss  Per- 
cival found  that  mourning  of  a  sort  was  in  course 
of  preparation,  she  decided  to  let  it  alone,  and 
trust  to  putting  them  into  decent  attire  when  they 
were  safely  at  Highfield. 


60  PEN. 

"  Of  course  you  will  not  have  to  wear  the  things 
afterwards,"  she  said,  looking  through  her  double 
eyeglasses  at  the  roll  of  strongly  smelling  black 
material  and  crape  that  lay  on  the  table. 

"  No,  I  was  just  a-telling  Miss  Pen,"  put  in  the 
pin-obscured  voice  of  the  dressmaker,  "  it  don't 
do  to  wear  all  one's  best  crape  every  day.  Crape 
is  horfull  wear  —  ketches  on  everything  and  spoils. 
My  gracious  !  and  as  for  the  dust !  I  've  been 
telling  her  as  she  '11  want  a  nice  dress  for  common, 
to  save  her  best  for  company  like,  or  going  out ; 
you  '11  find  some  patterns  there  as  I  brought  a  pur- 
pose under  the  fashion  book.  Raise  your  arm  a 
little,  my  dear,  there  —  a  bit  more  that  way." 

"  You  will  only  want  one  dress  with  some  crape 
on  it,  Penelope,"  Miss  Percival  said  icily,  "  the  rest 
I  will  arrange  when  you  are  at  Highfield." 

"  Dear,  dear !  did  that  pin  run  into  you,  my 
dear?"  said  the  little  dressmaker  sympathetically, 
for  Pen  had  given  a  little  start  and  quiver  that 
might  well  have  been  caused  by  sudden  physical 
pain.  "  Poor  lambs  !  "  in  a  breathy  aside  to  Miss 
Percival,  "  I  know  what  it  is  to  be  motherless,  and 
I  can  feel  for  them." 

"  The  less  you  have  now  the  better,"  Miss  Per- 
cival went  on.  "  I  have  made  all  the  arrangements 
with  your  father." 


LOUIS  BRAND'S  CHILDREN.          61 

But  Pen  made  no  reply,  perhaps  the  exigencies 
of  being  fitted  prevented  her  being  more  respon- 
sive, and  that  may  also  have  been  the  reason  why 
her  face  was  kept  so  persistently  turned  away  from 
Aunt  Penelope ;  and  there  was  something  in  the 
slim,  young  neck  turned  away,  and  the  bare  arm, 
slender  almost  to  thinness,  hanging  by  her  side, 
that  recalled  her  mother  in  the  old  days  very  viv- 
idly to  Miss  Percival's  mind,  when  she  was  just 
such  another  slip  of  a  girl ;  and  the  remembrance 
came  back  to  her  of  some  girlish  misunderstanding 
between  the  two,  and  of  a  sudden  reconciliation, 
when  Theresa  had  come  to  her  room  half  un- 
dressed at  night  and  had  thrown  her  soft,  slender 
arms  round  her  neck  in  such  loving,  frank  apol- 
ogy, that  the  cause  of  offence  was  forgotten  and 
forgiven  before  the  clasping  arms  were  loosed  from 
her  neck.  Ah  !  that  was  twenty  years  ago,  and 
those  warm,  clasping  arms  were  cold  and  dead, 
crossed  on  the  still  breast  with  flowers  of  such 
lavish  beauty,  that  those  she  had  brought  seemed 
poor  and  scanty  and  unworthy.  Would  the  daugh- 
ter's arms  ever  cling  round  her  neck  as  the  mother's 
used  to  do?  It  did  not  seem  likely.  She  hardly 
felt  as  if  she  would  care  for  it  from  Louis  Brand's 
daughter. 

How  long  that  tiresome  dressmaker  was  fum- 


62  PEN. 

bling  with  those  pins,  as  if  it  mattered  if  the  frock 
fitted  or  not,  or,  for  the  matter  of  that,  as  if  it 
were  likely  to  fit  at  all,  with  all  her  pains.  Miss 
Percival  got  up  impatiently  and  went  to  find  Tre, 
but  if  shrimps  and  tea  had  struck  her  the  evening 
before  as  unfeeling  and  unbecoming  the  situation, 
what  were  her  feelings  now  when  she  found  the 
child  leaning  as  far  out  of  window  as  the  laws  of 
balance  and  Sandy's  restraining  hand  would  allow, 
to  give  biscuits  to  a  poor,  little,  grinning  monkey, 
who  was  perched  on  the  railings  and  held  out  a 
dirty,  little  velvet  cap  in  a  furtive  way  with  one 
cheek  already  much  distended,  in  spite  of  the 
jerks  from  the  hand  of  his  master,  who  naturally 
wished  for  a  share  of  the  spoil. 

It  certainly  was  not  conventional  behavior  in  a 
house  of  mourning,  and  'Liza  herself  would  have 
seen  the  enormity  of  the  action,  though  she  and 
Miss  Percival  had  not  many  common  grounds  of 
agreement,  especially  on  points  of  etiquette.  But 
Miss  Percival  did  not  know,  how  should  she? 
that  it  was  not  mere  childish  forgetfulness  of  the 
dead  mother  upstairs,  but  just  the  very  opposite, 
that  prompted  the  action.  For  the  last  time  the 
monkey  had  come  and  the  organ  had  ground  out 
that  tiresome  "  Tommy  Dodd  "  as  it  was  doing 
now,  the  monkey  had  been  invited  in  out  of  the 


LOUIS  BRAND'S  CHILDREN.  63 

cold,  foggy  weather,  and  had  sat  on  the  end  of 
mother's  sofa  warming  himself  and  chattering 
softly  to  himself,  and  looking  at  mother  out  of 
those  odd,  wise,  sad,  little  eyes,  which  have  such 
a  depth  of  melancholy  in  them  in  spite  of  their 
mischief. 

"  Don't  hurt  him,"  mother  said,  "  be  very  gentle 
with  him."  And  after  that  the  children  always 
called  him  "  our  monkey,"  and  went  quite  long 
walks  in  quest  of  him,  saving  up  stray  sweets  or 
halfpence,  and  halfpence  in  the  Brand  family  were 
very  stray,  to  bestow  on  him  whenever  they  hap- 
pened to  light  upon  him. 

So  when  Tre,  peeping  through  the  decently 
drawn  blind  to  look  at  Aunt  Penelope's  horses, 
saw  the  organ  man  looking  doubtfully  up  at  the 
house,  with  a  hesitating  hand  on  the  organ  handle, 
and,  catching  sight  of  the  little  peeping  face,  gave 
an  inquiring  grin  of  that  matchless  Italian  bril- 
liancy that  is  so  infectious,  what  could  Tre  do 
but  smile  back  and  nod  ?  whereupon  "  Tommy 
Dodd  "  at  once  struck  up,  and  the  monkey  began 
climbing  round  the  area  railings. 

Of  course  Tre,  suddenly  pulled  back  into  the 
room  by  Sandy  when  he  saw  who  was  standing  at 
the  door  with  a  look  of  dignified  disapproval,  was 
utterly  unable  to  explain  the  situation,  and  Sandy 


64  PEN. 

was  so  entirely  ignored  that  he  could  not  venture 
to  interfere,  except  to  assist  Tre's  hurried  effort 
to  close  the  window  and  pull  down  the  blind. 

"You  had  better  go  to  your  sister  in  the  back 
room,"  Miss  Percival  said ;  and  Tre  slunk  past  her 
like  a  beaten  hound,  dimly  aware  of  having  com- 
mitted some  crime  connected  with  the  monkey, 
but  very  keenly  conscious  that  Aunt  Penelope  was 
horrid  and  cross,  and  that  she  could  not  endure 
her. 

"What  shall  I  do  with  such  children?"  Miss 
Percival  sighed  to  herself  as  she  got  into  the  car- 
riage. "  But  what  can  one  expect  from  Louis 
Brand's  children?" 


CHAPTER  VI. 

HIGHFIELD. 

MISS  PERCIVAL  went  down  that  afternoon 
to  Highfield.  Colonel  Percival  had  be- 
come of  late  years  entirely  an  invalid,  and  had 
fallen  into  that  stat£  in  which  the  most  minute 
trifles  of  his  daily  routine  were  of  more  impor- 
tance than  —  I  was  going  to  say  the  greatest  events 
of  state,  but  that  is  really  the  case  with  all  of  us 
more  or  less ;  so  it  would  be  more  to  the  point 
to  say  that  these  trifles  were  of  more  importance 
to  him  than  matters  that  seriously  affected  the  wel- 
fare of  his  family  or  his  estate.  I  think  that  a  dis- 
turbed night  or  a  badly  cooked  dinner  was  of  more 
consequence  to  him  than  the  loss  of  half  his  for- 
tune ;  and  I  am  afraid  that  the  loss  of  his  valet 
would  have  been  worse  to  him  than  that  of  his 
daughter  Penelope  herself,  provided  he  could  have 
escaped  the  business  worries  which  her  death  would 
necessarily  have  entailed. 

Of  course  in  these  circumstances  the  loss  of  a 
daughter  whom  he  had  not  seen  for  sixteen  years 
5 


66  PEN. 

was  hardly  likely  to  affect  him  very  keenly,  and 
it  was  not  a  subject  of  any  apprehension  to  Miss 
Percival  as  to  how  he  would  take  the  news  of  his 
daughter's  death,  though  her  intention  of  having 
the  two  girls  to  live  at  Highfield  would  require  to 
be  put  carefully  before  him,  lest  he  should  take 
alarm  at  this  invasion,  and  worry  himself  into  the 
idea  that  his  comfort  and  quiet  would  be  disturbed, 
which  she  had  resolved  should  not  happen. 

She  reached  Highfield  just  in  time  to  dress  and 
go  down  to  dinner.  It  was  always  pleasant  to  come 
back  to  Highfield,  but  now  it  seemed  specially  so ; 
whether  it  was  that  the  memory  of  Purton  Street 
rose  up  with  its  sordid  contrast  to  bring  into 
higher  relief  the  comfort  and  dignity  and  quiet 
luxury  of  her  surroundings,  or  whether,  as  we  are 
all  apt  to  do,  she  saw  it  in  the  light  in  which  it 
was  likely  to  impress  new-comers,  who  could  hardly 
have  imagined  such  a  place  as  Highfield,  and  to 
whom  it  must  certainly  come  as  a  delight  and 
surprise. 

It  was  curious,  and  she  did  not  in  the  least 
realize  it,  how  much  she  was  building  on  those  two 
children's  coming,  even  those  children  over  whom 
she  had  sighed  as  such  hopeless  subjects  to  deal  with 
—  the  children  of  the  shrimps  and  monkey  epi- 
sodes ;  Pen,  with  her  persistently  turned-away  head 


HIGHFIELD.  6/ 

and  her  little  clinched  hand ;  Louis  Brand's  chil- 
dren. Quite  unconsciously  to  herself  she  was  asso- 
ciating them  with  everything  about  the  place,  with 
the  broad,  shallow  steps  of  the  staircase,  with  the 
deep  window-seat  in  the  hall,  with  the  old  armor 
and  antlers  that  adorned  the  walls,  with  the  family 
portraits,  where  in  one  and  another  odd  little  re- 
semblances peeped  out  to  Louis  Brand's  children. 
She  turned  aside,  even  though  the  dinner-bell  had 
rung,  to  open  the  door  of  the  long-disused  school- 
room, where  every  well-worn  book  on  the  shelves, 
or  ink  spot  on  the  leather-covered  table,  recalled 
some  incident  of  long  ago,  when  there  were  two 
school-girls  there,  as  silly  and  happy  and  idle  as 
most  school-girls,  no  doubt.  She  crossed  the  room 
and  turned  the  old  terrestrial  globe,  noting,  with 
an  eye  to  a  future  word  with  the  housemaid,  that 
the  dust  lay  thick  on  the  frame,  and  then  caught 
herself  up  and  turned  away  to  hasten  down  to  take 
her  place  opposite  her  father  in  the  dining-room, 
where  the  wax  candles  on  the  table  only  dimly 
lighted  up  the  darkness  of  the  black  oak  panels  and 
the  portraits  of  Percivals  of  other  ages,  frowning  or 
simpering  down  from  the  walls. 

Miss  Percival  had  resolved  to  put  off  telling  her 
father  of  her  sister's  death  till  after  dinner,  and  had 
prepared  herself  for  leading  away  the  conversation 


68  PEN. 

if  the  old  man  should  ask  after  her ;  but  she  might 
have  spared  herself  the  trouble  of  such  forethought, 
for  Colonel  Percival  was  quite  absorbed  in  some 
delinquencies  of  the  postman,  which  had  just  come 
to  light,  and  which  he  talked  of  with  persistent 
reiteration  all  through  dinner,  getting  a  little  irrita- 
ble at  his  daughter's  indifference  to  what  was  to 
him  the  principal  interest  of  the  hour. 

"Of  course  it's  nothing  to  you,"  he  was  saying 
rather  fretfully,  when  at  last  the  dessert  was  on  the 
table  and  the  quick,  light-footed  servants  withdrew 
and  left  the  father  and  daughter  alone,  "  of  course 
it  is  nothing  to  you  whether  you  get  your  letters 
regularly  or  no.  A  girl's  letters  —  pshaw  !  But 
my  letters  are  of  importance,  and  besides  it  is  the 
principle  of  the  thing,  the  least  delay  or  irregularity 
ought  to  be  shown  up  at  once,  or  it  leads  to  a  de- 
moralization of  the  whole  system  —  a  demoraliza- 
tion of  the  whole  system,"  repeated  the  old  man, 
with  a  satisfaction  in  the  sound  of  the  last  words, 
which  recalled  to  his  mind  old  times,  when  he  was 
chairman  of  Quarter's  Sessions,  and  was  rather 
proud  of  his  well-turned  sentences. 

"  Father,"  Miss  Percival  said,  coming  round  from 
her  place  at  the  end  of  the  table  and  drawing  a 
chair  to  the  old  man's  side,  "  you  remember  I  told 
you  how  ill  I  found  poor  Theresa  !  " 


HIGHFIELD.  69 

"  Yes,  yes,"  he  answered  rather  testily ;  his  ideas 
moved  slowly,  and  he  did  not  like  an  abrupt  change 
of  subject,  and  besides  in  old  age,  from  various 
causes,  there  are  so  much  fewer  subjects  of  interest 
than  you  find  in  youth,  and  you  have  to  be  economi- 
cal over  them,  and  work  one  thoroughly  dry  before 
you  embark  on  another ;  and  there  was  a  good  deal 
more  to  say  about  Jenkins'  misdeeds.  "  I  hope 
she  's  better.  I  have  been  very  anxious  about 
her.  I  could  not  close  my  eyes  for  five  min- 
utes the  night  after  your  first  letter  came.  It  was 
such  a  shock  to  me,  and  it  ought  to  have  been 
broken  to  me  more  gently.  Dr.  Perry  says  I  can't 
bear  a  shock,  it  was  only  to-day  he  said  so." 

"  I  told  you,"  Miss  Percival  went  on,  "  that 
there  was  no  hope  of  her  recovery,  but  the  end 
came  sooner  than  I  expected." 

She  thought  he  had  not  understood  her  mean- 
ing, for  he  was  apparently  engrossed ,  in  disen- 
tangling a  knot  in  the  silk  cord  by  which  his  eye- 
glasses were  attached,  and  she  laid  her  hand  on 
his  arm  and  repeated  rather  louder,  "  She  died, 
father  dear,  yesterday." 

"  Yes,  yes.  I  heard  what  you  said.  I  'm  not 
deaf.  I  have  many  infirmities,  but  I  am  happy  to 
say  deafness  is  not  one  of  them.  Poor  Theresa ! 
she  was  always  a  great  trouble  to  us,  your  poor 


70  PEN. 

« 

mother  felt  it  very  acutely,  she  never  got  over  it ; 
she  was  never  the  same  afterwards.  And  now 
she  's  gone,  and  there  are  only  you  and  I,  Pene- 
lope, left." 

"There  are  her  children,  father." 

"  Oh,  yes,  she  had  some  children,  I  think  you 
mentioned  it.  I  suppose  I  ought  to  do  something 
for  them.  I  don't  know  what  is  expected  of  me." 

"  There  are  two  girls,  one  of  them  —  fifteen  —  is 
named  Penelope  after  me,  and  the  other  is  only 
six,  and  is  named  Theresa  after  her  mother." 

"No  boys?" 

"  No,  only  the  two  girls." 

"Well,  what  is  one  to  do  for  them?  Put  them 
to  school,  or  what?  " 

He  knew  by  her  manner  that  there  was  some- 
thing coming,  she  was  arranging  the  little  group  of 
wine-glasses  at  his  side  on  the  table,  in  various 
positions,  in  a  way  that  might  almost  have  been 
mistaken  for  nervousness  if  Miss  Percival  had  been 
nervously  inclined,  and  she  made  no  answer  to  his 
last  question. 

"  Well,  what  is  one  to  do  for  them  ?  Put  them 
to  school,  or  what?  You  don't  want  to  have  them 
here,  I  suppose?  " 

"Yes,"  she  said  quietly,  "  that  is  just  what  I  do 
wish." 


HIGHFIELD.  71 

There  was  a  fortunate  interruption  at  this  mo- 
ment by  the  entrance  of  the  coffee  and  Colonel 
Percival's  man  to  wheel  his  chair  into  the  library, 
where  they  sat  in  the  evening  when  they  were 
alone ;  and  he  also  brought  in  a  note  to  Miss  Per- 
cival,  which  required  an  answer,  and  she  went  away 
to  write  it,  and  before  she  came  back  she  went  into 
the  bedroom  that  she  and  Theresa  used  to  share 
when  they  were  little  girls.  She  had  been  advanced 
to  a  better  room,  but  Theresa  had  kept  this  to  the 
end  of  her  home-life,  and  it  had  never  been  used 
much  since,  so  that  without  any  intention  of  keep- 
ing the  room  sacred,  it  remained  much  the  same 
as  she  had  left  it.  Miss  Percival  had  no  candle, 
but  the  moonlight  through  the  window  showed  her 
the  pictures  on  the  walls  and  the  knick-knacks  on 
the  mantelpiece,  and  the  books  in  the  little  hang- 
ing bookshelf  on  the  wall.  She  did  not  know  how 
familiar  Pen  was  already  with  that  room ;  how  she 
knew  the  picture  of"  Dignity  and  Impudence  "  over 
the  fireplace,  and  the  china  pug  dog,  and  the  re- 
mains of  the  little  dessert  service,  in  which  childish 
feasts  had  been  served.  Miss  Percival  was  not  fan- 
ciful, no  one  had  ever  accused  her  of  that,  but  as  she 
stood  in  the  moonlit  room  with  all  the  old  associa- 
tions rising  up  thickly  around  her,  she  could  almost 
have  fancied  that  her  sister  was  by  her  side  again. 


?2  PEN. 

"  Pen  shall  have  this  room,"  she  said,  "  and  Tre 
shall  have  the  old  night  nursery." 

She  had  never  condescended  to  shortening  the 
names  into  Pen  and  Tre  before,  even  in  her 
thoughts.  She  thought  abbreviations  vulgar,  and 
had  resolved  that  the  silly  shorts  of  Pen  and  Tre 
should  be  left  behind  in  London,  with  much  be- 
sides belonging  to  their  early  life.  But  somehow 
the  influence  of  the  moonlit  room  and  the  thought 
of  the  dead  face  softened  some  of  the  hard  and 
fast  lines  she  had  been  laying  down  for  the  future, 
and  it  seemed  impossible  to  call  the  niece  Theresa 
when  the  sister's  presence  was  so  vividly  real. 

When  she  came  back  to  the  library,  she  found 
that  a  fresh  item  of  news  about  the  postman  had 
turned  her  father's  thoughts  back  into  their  former 
channel. 

"Tell  me  of  my  father,"  Theresa  had  said  one 
day,  "does  he  look  much  older?  Does  he  still  do 
this?  Does  he  still  like  that?  " 

Penelope  remembered  the  great  eyes  watching 
her  face  as  these  questions  were  asked,  with  the 
hungry  look  perhaps  that  Joseph  may  have  worn  in 
all  the  plenty  and  riches  of  Egypt,  when  he  asked, 
"Is  your  father  well?  the  old  man  of  whom  ye 
spake,  is  he  yet  alive?"  And  it  hurt  her  to  feel 
that  there  was  no  answering  feeling,  and  it  brought 


HIGHFIELD.  73 

before  her  more  vividly  than  anything  else  had 
done  the  irretrievable  loss  of  those  sixteen  years. 
He  had  been  so  fond  of  Theresa  in  those  old  times ; 
she  remembered  feeling  jealous  of  her  and  thinking 
she  was  the  favorite,  and  was  made  more  of  than 
herself. 

She  recalled  once  when  Theresa  was  ill  the  terri- 
ble anxiety  Colonel  Percival  had  shown  about  her, 
and  the  rejoicing  over  her  recovery ;  and  now  her 
death  did  not  seem  to  affect  him  in  the  smallest 
degree. 

As  she  sat  opposite  the  old  man,  dozing  in  his 
armchair,  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  was  the  only 
real  mourner  for  her  sister.  She  did  not  give  Louis 
Brand  credit  for  anything  but  a  theatrical,  posturing 
sort  of  sentiment ;  and  the  children,  as  we  have 
seen,  had  not  impressed  her  with  the  depth  of  their 
feelings,  and  as  for  Sandy,  she  knew  nothing  about 
him.  And  so  she  fancied  herself  as  standing  virtu- 
ally alone  beside  her  sister's  grave,  a  very  solitary 
mourner ;  and  from  that  her  thoughts  drifted  on  to 
her  own  funeral,  and  to  the  wonder  of  who  would 
mourn  for  her?  Not  her  father,  even  if  he  survived 
her,  which  did  not  seem  likely.  She  felt  that  her 
loss  would  hardly  cost  him  more  than  Theresa's,  if 
his  material  comforts  were  not  interfered  with. 
She  had  many  friends  ?  Yes ;  but  as  she  ran 


74  PEN. 

through  them  in  her  mind,  there  was  scarcely  one 
she  could  imagine  even  shedding  a  tear  if  she  heard 
that  Penelope  Percival  was  dead,  or  doing  more 
than  giving  a  sigh  of  very  mitigated  regret  as  she 
announced  the  fact  to  a  sympathetic  visitor.  The 
servants  who  had  been  in  her  service  for  years,  and 
whom  she  had  treated  with  unfailing  justice  and 
courtesy,  would  wear  mourning  and  go  about  with 
faces  of  the  conventional  length,  and  speak  in  sub- 
dued voices  for  a  day  or  two,  but  as  to  any  sincere 
heartache  there  was  not  one  of  them  that  she  could 
expect  it  of;  it  was  not  in  the  bond.  The  village 
people  too  would  gather  to  the  church  to  see  the 
burying,  and  feel  a  sort  of  pride  in  the  show,  and 
there  might  be  a  few  sighs  and  shakes  of  the  head, 
and  even  a  tear  here  and  there  among  the  more 
lachrymose  of  the  women,  but  it  would  be  better 
not  to  inquire  how  much  of  such  signs  of  mourning 
is  sacred  to  memories  of  broth  and  flannel,  and 
intensified  by  doubt  about  the  future  in  these 
respects. 

Miss  Percival  was  not  generally  given  to  morbid 
reflections,  but  to-night  they  crowded  thickly  upon 
her,  and  for  the  first  time  in  her  life  she  seemed 
able  to  stand  apart  from  herself,  and  to  see  what  a 
very  solitary,  unloved  person  Miss  Percival  of  High- 
field  was.  Was  she  so  unlovable?  More  than 


HIGHFIELD.  75 

one  man  had  wished  to  marry  her ;  once  she  had 
been  engaged  for  a  short  time,  she  might,  as  the 
saying  is,  have  married  well,  but  something  had 
always  intervened,  and  there  was  not  strong  enough 
feeling  on  her  part  to  overcome  obstacles  or  over- 
look objections.  Was  there  anything  repellent 
about  her?  The  colonel  was  asleep  in  his  chair 
opposite,  and  she  got  up  softly,  with  a  half  smile 
at  her  own  folly,  and  looked  at  herself  in  the 
round  mirror  in  a  heavy  antique  frame  over  the 
mantelpiece. 

It  was  a  gracious,  pleasing  face  she  saw  there, 
the  shaded  lamp  and  the  glowing  firelight  softened 
the  sternness  and  lightened  the  hardness ;  and  the 
eyes  had  a  gentle,  pleading  look  that  did  more  than 
shaded  lamp  or  firelight  glow ;  she  was  pleading 
with  herself  against  herself  that  she  was  not  un- 
lovely and  unlovable. 

The  children  should  love  her ;  come  what  might 
she  would  win  their  love.  This  proud,  independent 
Penelope  Percival  just  then,  in  the  sudden  chill 
feeling  of  loneliness  and  lovelessness,  felt  a  hunger 
for  the  love  of  those  children  of  Louis  Brand's,  — 
those  rough,  ill-bred,  shrimpy,  little  creatures,  for 
whom  she  had  felt  a  repugnance  almost  amount- 
ing to  disgust  only  a  few  hours  before. '  She  was 
stretching  out  her  hands  to  them  across  the  gulf, 


76  PEN. 

which  had  just  revealed  itself  to  her,  as  separating 
her  from  the  love  and  sympathy  of  the  rest  of  her 
kind,  begging  for  just  a  drop  of  the  water  of  their 
love  to  assuage  the  parching  thirst  of  her  nature. 

She  would  win  their  love ;  she  would  spare  no 
pains  to  make  their  life  happy  to  them ;  they,  at 
least,  if  no  one  else,  should  grieve  for  her  and  feel 
her  loss  a  heart-breaking  and  terrible  matter ;  she 
was  planning  feverishly  how  she  would  endear  her- 
self to  them  as  it  were,  laying  traps  for  their  affec- 
tion, or  seeking  to  bribe  them  out  of  it  with  all  the 
lavish  outlay  imagination  could  suggest. 

Miss  Percival  was  certainly  not  herself  that  night, 
she  was  nervous  and  unhinged,  and  Colonel  Per- 
cival was  irritably  conscious  of  something  amiss 
with  her,  when  he  woke  with  a  snort  and  found 
her  sitting,  with  her  work  dropped  into  her  lap, 
staring  fixedly  into  the  fire,  which  had  sunk  below 
its  usual  comfortable  proportions. 

"  Pshaw  !  "  he  said  with  a  shiver,  "  ring  the  bell 
for  Jackson,  I  'm  chilled  to  the  bone  !  Sitting 
looking  at  the  fire  won't  keep  it  alight,  and  I  had 
closed  my  eyes  for  a  minute  as  I  have  had  a  lot  of 
worry  to-day  —  a  lot  of  worry  !  and  the  doctor  said 
it  was  as  much  as  my  life  was  worth  to  be  worried." 

Just  for  a  moment  he  could  not  quite  recall 
what  had  been  the  worries  of  the  day,  but  they 


HIGHFIELD.  77 

soon  came  back,  and  naturally  the  one  first  that 
had  most  deeply  impressed  him. 

"  If  a  man  can't  have  his  letters  delivered  punc- 
tually and  regularly,  a  man,  I  say,  who  has  business 
affairs  of  importance —  Poor  Theresa,  too,  yes, 
yes,  poor  Theresa  !  —  Gently,  Jackson,  gently,  I 
tell  you.  I  'm  not  made  of  cast-iron  to  be  knocked 
about  in  that  way." 

The  letters,  in  spite  of  the  postman's  delinquen- 
cies, were  delivered  at  the  proper  hour  next  morn- 
ing, and  several  of  them  taken  up  on  the  tray  that 
conveyed  Miss  Percival's  early  cup  of  tea.  She  had 
not  slept  well,  her  mind  had  been  feverishly  work- 
ing over  the  plans  for  the  future,  and  the  rearrange- 
ments that  would  be  necessary ;  the  redistribution 
of  the  household  work ;  the  new  maid  to  wait  on 
the  two  girls;  the  hours  and  rules  that  would  be 
best  for  them  ;  of  other  girls  in  the  neighborhood 
who  would  be  suitable  friends  for  them.  No  one 
would  have  given  Miss  Percival  credit  for  such 
castle-building,  or  have  imagined  for  a  moment 
that  Louis  Brand's  children  could  have  been  the 
foundation  on  which  these  airy  fabrics  were  built 
up,  but  one  of  those  letters  on  the  silver  salver 
shattered  them  at  a  blow. 

It  was  directed  in  an  unknown  hand,  one  of 
those  artificially  original  hands  that  are  the  fashion 


78  PEN. 

nowadays,  carefully  bold,  with  a  great  deal  of  char- 
acter in  them,  but  not  the  character  of  the  writer, 
because  it  is  not  natural.  After  all  the  copper- 
plate, conventional  writing  of  our  forefathers  might 
have  betrayed  more  traits  of  the  writer's  character 
to  the  delineator,  who  undertakes  to  hit  off  all  your 
moral  and  intellectual  qualities  on  receipt  of  six 
stamps,  than  much  of  the  affected  caligraphy  of 
the  present  day. 

Miss  Percival  knew  at  a  glance  who  was  the 
writer,  though  it  was  the  first  time  she  had  seen 
her  brother-in-law's  writing,  and  though  there  was 
not  the  depth  of  black  edge  that  she  would  have 
expected  ;  but  with  an  odd  sort  of  nervousness  she 
opened  her  other  letters  first,  and  drank  her  tea 
before  she  opened  this.  She  had  a  conviction  that 
it  was  to  ask  for  money,  and,  as  she  held  the  en- 
velope in  her  hand,  she  told  herself  that  this  was 
no  doubt  the  first  of  a  series  of  such  demands,  and 
that  it  would  be  necessary  to  have  a  very  clear  rule 
laid  down  as  to  how  much  he  was  to  have. 

The  letter  was  very  short.  There  was  no  long- 
winded  palaver  at  any  rate. 

DEAR  MADAM,  —  I  have  arranged  for  the  funeral  of  my 
wife  at  Monkton-on-Sea  on  Saturday  next. 

Allow  me  to  thank  you  for  your  kind  intentions  as 
regards  my  children;  but  I  do  not  think  I  need  trouble 


HIGHFIELD.  79 

you  to  undertake  their  maintenance  and  education,  seeing 
that  they  still  have  a  father  living  in  the  person  of 
Your  obedient  servant, 

Louis  BRAND. 

Kindly  let  me  know  if  you  propose  to  attend  the  funeral 
on  Saturday. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

MOTHER'S  GRAVE. 

*"  I  "HERE  is  an  operation  that  is  forcibly  but 
JL  vulgarly  described  as  cutting  off  your  nose 
to  spite  your  face,  and  Louis  Brand,  before  the 
ink  of  that  letter  was  dry,  felt  that  he  was  being 
guilty  of  an  act  of  that  description,  and  he  called 
"Liza  back  just  as  she  was  starting  to  put  it  in  the 
post,  with  half  an  idea  of  altering  it  so  as  at  kast 
to  leave  a  loop-hole  for  possible  reconciliation ; 
and  he  even  took  it  in  his  hand  as  if  he  were  just 
going  to  reopen  it,  while  'Liza  stood  at  the  door 
•tying  her  bonnet-strings,  which  she  generally  con- 
sidered a  superfluous  elegance  when  merely  going 
to  the  post. 

But  after  a  minute  Mr.  Brand  tossed  the  letter 
back  to  her,  saying,  "There  !  it  can  go  as  it  is," 
and  it  accordingly  appeared,  as  we  have  seen,  at 
Highfield  with  Miss  Percival's  early  cup  of  tea. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  do  Louis  Brand  justice 
about  this  action  of  his,  and,  for  the  matter  of 
that,  it  is  always  very  difficult  to  judge  fairly  of 


MOTHER'S  GRAVE.  81 

others,  and  perhaps  quite  as  much  so  of  our- 
selves, motives  are  so  inextricably  mixed.  There 
may  be  a  tiny  vein  of  the  purest  gold  running 
through  and  lost  sight  of  in  a  mass  of  utterly 
worthless  rock,  while,  on  the  contrary,  a  flaw 
may  run  through  what  looks  like  a  solid  piece  of 
precious  metal. 

It  was  not  merely  to  gratify  his  feelings  of  re- 
sentment and  indignation  at  the  treatment  he  had 
received  from  his  wife's  family,  nor  from  his 
wounded  pride  at  what  he  called,  and  perhaps 
not  untruly,  the  insolence  of  Miss  Percival's  pro- 
posal, though  both  of  these  were  largely  repre- 
sented :  he  had  really  loved  his  wife,  quite  as 
much  perhaps  as  dozens  of  unselfish,  considerate, 
attentive  husbands,  who  never  give  their  wives  one 
heartache,  and  who  marry  again  as  soon  as  a  de- 
cent time  has  elapsed  after  their  deaths.  Louis 
Brand  could  no  more  have  married  again  than  he 
could  have  turned  into  a  satisfactory,  dependable 
individual,  and  his  grief  was  as  ill-regulated  and 
undisciplined  as  the  rest  of  his  feelings.  His  sor- 
row was  not  however  intensified  by  remorse,  as 
many  men's  might  have  been  in  his  situation. 
Looking  back  on  his  married  life  it  seemed  to 
him  a  day-dream  of  happiness  and  love  and  sym- 
pathy, and  he  lost  sight  of  all  the  little  daily 
6 


82  PEN. 

clouds  and  mists  that  had  interrupted  the  sunshine 
of  those  days. 

He  had  fixed  on  Monkton-on-Sea  as  the  place 
where  his  wife  should  rest,  not  only  because  he 
would  not  have  her  admitted  as  it  were  by  suffer- 
ance among  the  people  who  would  not  recognize 
her  during  her  lifetime,  but  also  because  it  seemed 
like  giving  her  back  altogether,  losing  her  utterly, 
if  she  were  laid  away  in  the  great,  grim  family 
vault,  where  there  would  be  no  room  for  him  be- 
side her.  And  Monkton-on-Sea  had  been  the 
place  where  they  had  gone  after  their  marriage, 
where  they  had  spent  some  happy,  sunshiny  spring 
weeks,  when  the  hope  of  speedy  reconciliation  with 
her  family  had  made  what  seemed  only  a  tempo- 
rary estrangement  easy  enough  to  bear. 

There  was  a  sweet,  sunny  churchyard  there,  he 
remembered  well,  where  they  had  sometimes  sat, 
talking  as  happy  people  will  of  death  and  parting, 
as  something  so  very  far  away  and  improbable  that 
they  can  afford  to  look  at  it  in  a  tender,  poetical 
fashion,  which  can  be  cut  short  at  any  moment  by 
the  warm  pressure  of  living  hands  and  the  look  of 
loving  eyes.  He  remembered  how  she  had  de- 
scribed to  him  then  the  Percival  tombs  in  High- 
field  churchyard,  and  had  said,  "  When  we  are  very 
old,  you  and  I,  Louis,  we  will  come  and  be  buried 


MOTHER'S  GRAVE.  83 

just  here  where  we  sit  to-day,  only  you  must  let 
me  go  first,  just  a  little  time  first,  for  I  could  not 
live  a  day  without  you." 

What  a  child  she  was  then  !  But  now  she  had 
gone  first,  and  the  words  spoken  in  almost  a 
tender  jest  should  be  carried  out  to  the  letter, 
and  she  should  be  laid  where  they  stood  that 
day  in  the  spring  sunshine,  with  the  daffodils  nod- 
ding their  golden  heads  in  the  beds  along  the 
churchyard  path,  and  a  thrush  singing  a  full- 
throated  song  from  the  lilac  bushes,  on  which  the 
buds  were  swelling  almost  visibly. 

She  had  never  spoken  of  her  wishes  during  her 
last  illness,  indeed  no  word  of  parting  had  passed 
between  them,  and  she  had  shown  no  yearning  for 
her  old  home,  nor  eager  delight  at  her  sister's 
coming.  As  for  the  children,  there  was  no  doubt 
what  their  wishes  would  be  as  regards  Highfield. 
Sandy  had  told  him  some  of  Pen's  fireside  confi- 
dences, though,  with  what  he  felt  was  the  deepest 
treachery,  he  strongly  advised  Mr.  Brand  to  weigh 
well  the  advantages  offered  to  the  children  in  be- 
ing brought  up  under  their  grandfather's  roof. 
Sandy  was  not  much  given  to  offering  advice, 
though  he  was  a  very  sympathetic  listener,  which 
is  worth  all  the  good  advice  in  the  world  put  to- 
gether ;  so  perhaps  he  did  not  argue  the  matter 


84  PEN. 

with  Louis  Brand  as  forcibly  as  a  more  experi- 
enced giver  of  advice  might  have  done,  and 
moreover  perhaps  he  was  half-hearted  about  it 
himself,  and  could  not  quite  shake  off  the  effect  of 
Pen's  pleading  eyes  and  the  feeling  that,  when 
once  the  children  entered  the  gates  of  Highfield, 
they  passed  out  of  his  life  altogether ;  and  that  he 
should  never  again  feel  Pen's  hands  clasping  his 
arm,  and  her  sweet,  little  face  looking  up  so  con- 
fidingly into  his,  or  Tre's  arms  clinging  round  his 
neck,  with  her  round,  soft  cheek  pressed  to  his. 

So  when  he  came  in  that  evening  soon  after 
that  important  letter  had  been  despatched,  and 
heard  the  decision  that  Louis  Brand  had  arrived 
at,  though  he  protested  against  the  folly  and  self- 
ishness of  the  step,  and  declared  that  the  children 
were  being  sacrificed  to  his  false  pride  —  during 
which  tirade,  Louis  Brand  leaned  back  in  his  chair 
with  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and  his  eyebrows 
raised,  whistling  softly  to  himself  —  Sandy  felt 
really,  in  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  a  little  feeling 
of  relief,  and  having  satisfied  his  conscience  by 
protesting,  threw  himself  heartily  into  all  the  ar- 
rangements, and,  I  fancy,  provided  a  good  deal 
of  the  necessary  funds  for  carrying  them  out. 

Louis  Brand  had  never  talked  so  energetically 
or  sensibly  about  the  necessity  of  setting  to  work 


MOTHER'S   GRAVE.  85 

and  making  a  comfortable  home  for  his  little  girls ; 
and  Sandy  half  believed  there  must  be  something 
in  it,  and  that  the  artist  had  taken  a  fresh  start  of 
industry,  and  wondered  at  such  being  the  first  re- 
sult of  losing  the  wife  who,  to  Sandy's  mind,  might 
have  inspired  the  most  idle  nature  to  boundless 
efforts,  if  not  to  actual  genius ;  and  when  his  mind 
misgave  him,  he  comforted  himself  with  the  feeling 
that,  at  any  rate,  he  would  be  at  hand  to  keep  an 
eye  on  them,  and  they  would  not  be  altogether 
lost  to  him  as  would  have  been  the  case  if  they 
had  gone  to  Highfield. 

That  Saturday  was  one  of  those  lovely  days  that 
are  sometimes  granted  to  us  in  March,  but  very 
rarely,  standing  out  in  strong  contrast  with  the  days 
of  blustering  rough  winds,  or  sullen  rain,  or  gray 
ungenial  gloom,  or  deceptive,  steely  sunshine,  with 
the  biting  east  wind  to  blemish  its  good  deeds. 

This  was  balmy  and  kindly  and  gentle,  with 
little,  dappled,  soft  clouds  tossed  about  over  the 
blue  sky,  and  a  tender,  little  breeze  to  waft  the 
scent  of  violets,  and  the  pleasant  smell  of  fresh- 
turned  earth,  and  the  sound  of  bubbling  springs, 
and  the  notes  of  birds ;  it  is  only  on  such  days 
that  we  recognize  the  silence  and  scentlessness  and 
darkness  of  winter. 

It  was  the  very  day  for  a  funeral,  full  of  hope 


86  PEN. 

and  the  sense  of  a  coming  brightness ;  it  is  easy 
enough  to  think  of  the  Resurrection  on  such  days ; 
and  the  words  of  the  burial  service  will  always 
be  associated  in  Pen's  mind  with  sunshine  and 
a  broad  expanse  of  blue  sparkling  sea,  which 
stretched  out  beyond  the  gray  shoulder  of  the  hill 
that  shelters  little  Monkton  Church  from  the  north 
and  east.  She  shed  no  tears,  and  once  she  looked 
up  into  Sandy's  face  and  smiled,  and  he  smiled 
back,  but  there  were  no  hysterical  manifestations 
of  grief  such  as  Aunt  Penelope  had  feared  though 
she  was  not  there  to  see  and  keep  them  in  check, 
and  there  were  only  Louis  Brand  and  the  two  girls 
and  Sandy,  so  they  might  have  behaved  as  natur- 
ally or  vulgarly  or  unconventionally  as  they  liked, 
without  any  feeling  of  constraint. 

When  the  service  was  over,  Sandy  took  Pen 
and  Tre  to  a  farmhouse  near,  where  a  kind,  bust- 
ling farmer's  wife  made  much  of  them,  and  regaled 
them  with  milk  and  large  slices  of  home-made 
bread  and  butter,  and  interested  them  both,  and 
more  especially  Tre,  to  whom  such  things  had 
hitherto  been  fabulous,  or  rather  articles  of  faith, 
as  mother  had  often  described  them,  so  they  must 
really  exist  —  in  a  family  of  newly  hatched  ducks 
with  yellow  plush  bodies  and  button  eyes,  and 
absurd  embryo  wings,  and  little  webbed  feet. 


MOTHER'S   GRAVE.  87 

A  farm  appeared  to  Tre  as  a  very  superior  sort 
of  Zoological  Gardens,  in  which  you  were  allowed 
to  come  to  much  more  satisfactory  terms  with  the 
animals,  without  the  interference  of  troublesome 
keepers. 

When  Louis  Brand  and  Sandy  came  in,  they 
found  Tre  in  perfect  happiness,  with  her  crape  all 
covered  up  safely  under  a  capacious  apron  of  Mrs. 
Metcalfe's,  sitting  quite  inside  the  big,  open  fire- 
place, with  a  flannel  bundle  in  her  arms  containing 
a  very  interesting  invalid,  a  young  pig,  the  "  barl- 
ing" of  a  large  family,  who,  being  the  weakest  and 
less  able  to  assert  its  rights,  had  been  put  upon 
and  trampled  by  its  more  vigorous  relations,  and 
had  been  rescued  and  brought  indoors  for  a  little 
cosseting  by  the  fire.  She  could  hardly  bear  to 
give  up  the  sufferer,  and  Mrs.  Metcalfe  was  anxious 
to  bestow  it  on  her,  but  readily  understood  that  it 
would  be  an  awkward  addition  to  their  party  for 
the  Sunday,  which  was  to  be  spent  at  Monkton, 
whatever  it  might  be  later  on  in  Purton  Street; 
and  also  that,  considering  they  were  going  to  walk 
down  to  Monkton,  and  it  was  a  good  four  miles, 
even  a  barling  might  be  somewhat  of  a  burden  to 
carry. 

When  they  came  out  of  the  farm  they  found  that 
mother's  grave  was  filled  in,  and  the  mound 


88  PEN. 

covered  with  moss  and  flowers,  which  made  it  less 
of  a  wrench  to  come  away  and  leave  her  there. 
Sandy  had  been  busy  helping  the  old  sexton  when 
Pen  and  Tre  were  in  the  farm,  and  the  grave 
looked  a  very  pleasant  resting-place  in  the  level 
rays  of  the  sun,  that  still  rested  lovingly  on  it,  as 
the  children  knelt  down  and  whispered  their  last 
good-night  among  the  flowers,  and  then  set  off 
with  father  and  Sandy  up  the  steep  hillside,  with 
the  gorse  flowering  bravely  here  and  there  on  the 
broad,  heathy  margin  of  the  road,  mixed  with  the 
dull  purple  of  last  year's  dead  ling,  and  the  remains 
of  the  gallant  show  of  golden  brake  and  crimson 
blackberry  leaves  that  had  weathered  the  winter's 
snows.  The  sun  had  dipped  behind  the  hill  be- 
fore they  reached  the  brow,  but  it  left  such  a 
legacy  of  crimson  glow,  as  might  have  glorified  a 
far  less  beautiful  landscape  of  undulating  meadows 
and  pine-clad  hills  and  snug  cottages,  clustering 
round  thatched  farmhouses,  each  with  a  body- 
guard of  stout  ricks. 

Pen  had  drawn  her  hand  out  of  Sandy's,  into 
which  it  had  naturally  found  its  way,  as  she  turned 
away  from  the  grave,  and  put  it  rather  timidly 
under  her  father's  arm ;  he  looked  so  white  and 

• 

gaunt  and  hollow-eyed,  and  so  very  lonely,  as  if 
she  and  Sandy  and  little  Tre  might  be  miles  away 


MOTHER'S  GRAVE.  89 

from  him,  even  though  they  were  walking  at  his 
side.  He  kept  looking  away  too  with  those  great 
hungry  dark  eyes,  with  the  same  look  in  them  as 
when  he  had  turned  at  the  lych  gate  to  look  back 
at  the  flower-covered  grave,  as  if  he  could  see  it 
still,  though  his  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  steep  road, 
and  the  hill-top  purple  against  the  crimson  sky. 

It  was  dark  when  they  got  into  Monkton,  Sandy 
carrying  little  Tre,  who  was  quite  worn  out  with 
the  events  of  the  day.  There  were  lights  shining 
from  the  windows  of  the  quaint,  little  town,  and  a 
red  lamp  from  the  end  of  the  small  breakwater  pier 
drew  a  moving,  wavy  line  across  the  water,  reveal- 
ing the  fact  that  the  great  darkness  in  front  was  the 
sea,  which  was  confirmed  by  the  soft  lap  and  plash 
on  the  beach  below,  and  the  fresh  smell  of  sea- 
weed in  the  air. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

A   DAY   OF   REST. 

LOOKING  back  at  the  last  chapter  it  seems  to 
me  that  the  geography  of  Monkton  may 
puzzle  the  reader,  and  that  I  ought  to  explain  that 
Monkton,  where  Mrs.  Brand  was  laid,  is,  properly 
speaking,  Up-Monkton,  just  a  little  scattered  ham- 
let two  miles  from  the  sea,  up  a  long  coombe  or 
valley ;  while  Monkton  proper,  or  Monkton-on-Sea, 
lies  on  the  seashore,  not  at  the  opening  of  the  same 
valley,  but  over  the  shoulder  of  the  next  bluff  or 
headland,  over  which  the  steep  road  from  Up- 
Monkton  leads,  and  then  descends  abruptly,  almost 
precipitately,  into  the  little,  gray  town,  nestling 
round  a  little,  gray  church  down  on  the  beach, 
where  the  cliffs  that  rise  so  majestic  and  grim  and 
uncompromising  on  either  side,  dip  down  as  if  on 
purpose  to  let  the  Monkton  fishermen  launch  their 
boats. 

In  that  part  of  the  world  if  you  mean  Up- 
Monkton  you  point  with  your  thumb  indefinitely 
over  your  shoulder,  without  any  precise  notion  of 


A   DAY   OF   REST.  91 

its  being  situated  north,  south,  east,  or  west  of 
where  you  stand,  the  upward  jerk  is  enough; 
whereas  if  you  mean  Monkton-on-Sea  you  point, 
still  with  the  thumb,  in  a  downward  direction  un- 
der your  elbow. 

It  was  very  early  in  the  morning  that  Sandy 
looked  out  of  his  little  bedroom  window  in  Beach 
Cottages.  He  had  not  slept  much,  perhaps  the 
bed  was  not  comfortable,  perhaps  his  thoughts  were 
worrying  and  anxious,  but  it  was  still  dark  when  he 
opened  his  window  and  leaned  out,  though  there 
was  a  brightening  in  the  east,  a  soft,  throbbing 
light  that  made  the  stars  grow  pale,  and  that,  as  it 
strengthened,  flushed  the  sky  and  sea  from  east  to 
west  with  rose-color,  and  turned  a  great  bank  of 
cloud  into  deep  purple  gloom. 

Louis  Brand  used  to  say  that  Sandy  had  no 
appreciation  of  beauty,  and  Sandy  never  contested 
the  point,  and,  I  think,  almost  believed  it ;  but  still 
I  do  not  think  the  beauty  of  this  dawn  was  wasted 
on  him.  Beauty  affects  people  so  differently,  some 
of  us  consciously  notice  it  and  dissect  and  compare 
it,  while  others  imbibe  it  unconsciously,  and  are 
happier,  holier,  and  nearer  heaven  for  it.  There 
are  others,  but  these,  I  hope  and  believe,  are  few, 
who  are  utterly  impervious  to  outside  influences, 
and  yet  perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  hope  there 


92  PEN. 

are  many  such,  seeing  how  many  thousands  live 
all  their  lives,  or  rather  exist,  in  ugly  and  sordid 
surroundings. 

Before  Sandy  lay  the  beautiful  sweep  of  Monk- 
ton  bay,  which  stretches  away  on  either  side  till,  at 
the  extremities,  the  headlands  mix  with  and  melt 
into  the  clouds.  It  is  only  here  and  there  that 
the  cliffs  relax  and  dip  down  to  the  beach  as  they 
do  at  Monkton,  though,  gray  and  uncompromising 
as  they  look,  they  cannot  resist  the  inroads  of  the 
sea,  that  stretched  so  smiling  and  dimpling  and 
innocent  before  Sandy  that  morning.  Occasionally 
that  sea  comes  dashing  in  in  great,  powerful,  foam- 
ing waves,  which  tear  down  masses  of  the  gray 
lias  and  undermine  the  cliffs,  and  scatter  the  beach 
below  with  fossil  treasures  of  rare  beauty  and  in- 
terest to  enthusiastic  youths  with  hammers,  and 
ardent  old  maids  in  spectacles  and  mushroom  hats, 
who  can  pronounce  words  of  six  syllables  without 
turning  a  hair.  These  fossils  are  a  harvest  to  the 
Monkton  fishermen,  who,  without  any  knowledge 
of  mineralogy,  or  wish  to  acquire  it,  or  power  of 
pronouncing  breakjaw  names,  and  guided  only  by 
the  all-powerful  instinct  of  money-getting,  ferret  out 
all  sorts  of  curious  objects,  for  the  names  of  which  I 
would  refer  you  to  the  guide  book  to  Monkton,  un- 
der the  heading  of  "  Geology  of  the  Neighborhood." 


A   DAY    OF   REST.  93 

But  Sandy  gazed  as  ignorantly  at  the  geological 
strata  along  the  cliffs  as  you  or  I  might  have  done, 
and  noticed  more  how  headland  after  headland 
came  in  sight,  in  the  strengthening  light,  and  how, 
when  the  sun  showed  its  bright  face  over  the  hori- 
zon, the  crimson  of  sky  and  shore  was  drowned 
in  the  golden  sea  of  light  that  flooded  the  world. 

The  bedroom  provided  for  Sandy  was  in  the 
next  house  to  that  where  Louis  Brand  and  the 
children  slept,  as  the  few  little  lodging-houses  on 
the  beach  at  Monkton  are  by  no  means  spacious, 
so  that  he  could  not  tell  if  Pen  and  Tre  were  still 
asleep ;  and  when,  an  hour  later,  he  turned  out  on 
to  the  little  parade,  and  looked  up  at  Beach  Cot- 
tage, the  smallest  of  the  little  dolls'  houses,  and 
the  farthest  from  the  town,  there  was  no  sign  of 
life  or  stirring  about  it,  any  more  than  in  the  other 
houses,  which  were  still  asleep  with  drawn  blinds 
and  closed  doors. 

Knowing  by  experience  the  soundness  of  the 
slumbers  of  lodging-house  keepers,  and  their  wrath 
at  being  awakened  at  unusual  hours,  he  refrained 
from  ringing  the  bell  if  there  was  one,  which  I 
rather  doubt,  so  primitive  is  Monkton,  but,  instead, 
threw  up  a  pebble  at  the  window  over  the  door  of 
Beach  Cottage.  A  minute  afterwards  the  blind 
was  pulled  aside  and  a  wild  struggle  ensued  with 


94 

the  window,  which  was  speedily  raised  by  another 
hand  belonging  to  some  one  who  kept  discreetly 
in  the  background ;  while  with  no  regard  to  ap- 
pearances, and  the  fact  that  a  nightgown  is  not 
the  usual  style  of  costume  for  receiving  morning 
callers,  Tre's  bright  face  and  curly  head  leant  out 
of  the  window,  with  two  round  arms  stretched  out 
to  Sandy,  wishing  him  good-morning  and  begging 
him  to  wait  for  her  only  a  minute,  she  wanted  to 
go  and  dig  in  the  sand,  and  catch  some  dear  little 
crabs,  and  pick  up  shells,  and —  What  else  she 
wanted  was  lost  by  her  disappearance  into  the 
room,  and  the  window  being  closed. 

Tre's  toilet  that  morning  must  have  been  a  hasty 
affair,  for  Sandy  had  not  been  sitting  for  more  than 
five  minutes  on  the  breakwater  that  runs  out  into 
the  sea  just  in  front  of  Beach  Cottage,  when  a 
precipitate  rush  of  small  feet  behind  would  have 
made  him  turn  round,  if  an  instinct  had  not  told 
him  that  they  were  meant  to  be  unheard,  and  that 
the  first  intimation  of  Tre's  presence  was  to  be  the 
clasping  of  her  arms  round  his  neck  as  she  stood 
on  the  breakwater  behind  him.  And  then  there 
was  no  getting  rid  of  the  creature,  whatever  it  was, 
that  clung  so  tight,  with  thrills  of  young  laughter 
and  tickling  of  soft  breath  on  the  back  of  his  neck, 
till  he  got  up  and  ran  down  the  breakwater  and 


A   DAY   OF   REST.  95 

jumped  across  to  a  piece  of  low  rock,  the  brown 
sea-weedy  top  of  which  had  just  been  left  visible 
by  the  retreating  tide,  and  pretended,  with  violent 
contortions  and  exclamations  of  great  terror,  to 
shake  it  off  into  the  little,  creamy  waves  that  sur- 
rounded them,  and  then  it  allowed  itself  to  be 
pulled  round  into  view  and  to  be  revealed,  as  no 
old  man  of  the  mountains,  or  strange  and  terrible 
octopus,  or  sea-creature,  but  little  Tre,  rosy  and 
laughing  as  her  mother  would  have  loved  to  see 
her. 

"  How  heartless  children  are  !  "  Aunt  Penelope 
might  have  said,  "and  her  mother  only  buried 
yesterday  !  "  But  I  think  that  mother  would  have 
smiled. 

Pen  joined  the  party  before  very  long,  and,  as 
she  brought  news  that  father  was  still  asleep  and 
that  there  were  np  signs  of  breakfast,  there  was  no 
occasion  to  hurry  back,  and  the  three  wandered 
on  far  along  the  beach,  allured  from  one  object 
of  interest  to  another.  There  were  green  pools 
in  the  rocks  with  waving  brown  seaweed,  among 
which  pale  and  ghostly  little  crabs  sidled,  or  dim, 
shadowy  shrimps  flitted  over  the  stones  at  the  bot- 
tom, stones  that  looked  like  gems  of  priceless 
worth  till  you  reached  them ;  slippery  promonto- 
ries covered  with  seaweed,  with  knobs  that  would 


96  PEN. 

pop  if  you  squeezed  them,  over  which  it  was  excit- 
ing and  perilous  to  clamber,  with  the  chance  of 
suddenly  slipping  into  depths  on  either  side ;  a 
lobster  pot  left  high  and  dry  by  the  tide,  near 
which,  by  a  freak  of  the  tide,  an  empty  lobster  tail 
was  lying,  which  Tre  maintained  had  been  left 
behind  by  its  owner  when  escaping  from  the  trap, 
though,  as  the  shell  was  scarlet,  it  might  have 
seemed  likely  that  the  lobster  in  question  had 
gone  through  other  experiences  between  its  cap- 
ture and  parting  with  its  shell. 

At  one  time  Tre  got  infected  with  a  geological 
mania,  and  had  soon  got  her  frock  full  of  stones  of 
considerable  weight,  and  she  could  hardly  be  per- 
suaded to  leave  one  with  an  indistinct  broken  fossil 
at  one  end,  which  weighed  half  a  hundredweight 
or  so ;  but,  before  Sandy  had  committed  himself 
by  an  offer  to  carry  this  substantial  curiosity,  fa- 
ther was  descried  in  front  of  Beach  Cottage,  signal- 
ling to  them  to  come  back ;  and  hunger  and  the 
prospect  of  breakfast  drove  geology  out  of  Tre's 
head,  and  the  lapful  of  stones  was  cast  ruthlessly 
aside. 

Looking  back  on  that  Sunday  at  Monkton  it 
always  seemed  to  Pen  as  her  ideal  of  a  Sabbath,  as 
if  all  the  world  were  resting,  mother  in  her  flower- 
covered  grave,  father  sitting  there  on  the  breakwater 


A   DAY   OF   REST.  97 

smoking  his  pipe  and  looking  away  across  the  seas, 
which  seemed  resting  too,  so  softly  did  the  little 
ripples  fall  on  the  beach,  and  sink  back  with  a 
peaceful,  little,  murmuring  sigh,  "  e'en  in  its  very 
motion  there  was  rest." 

A  fishing-boat  anchored  near  the  end  of  the  pier 
was  reflected  on  the  placid  surface,  its  little  mast 
prolonged,  in  the  reflection,  to  the  proportions  of 
that  of  a  racing- yacht ;  and  farther  off  the  sails  of 
some  small  boats  made  quite  a  long  line  of  white 
on  the  sea.  The  gulls  seemed  resting  too,  settling 
down  on  the  water  in  groups,  and  idly  rising  and 
falling  with  its  gentle  motion  as  if  the  strong  wings, 
that  battle  so  bravely  against  wind  and  storm,  were 
weary.  Tre,  in  spite  of  her  active  beginning  of 
the  day,  was  tired,  and  sat  quietly  resting  against 
Sandy's  arm  and  digging  little  holes  in  the  sand 
with  his  walking-stick  ;  while  Pen  herself,  with  that 
sort  of  exhaustion  that  is  almost  pleasant  if  one 
is  left  quite  alone  and  can  sit  still  and  dream, 
leaned  against  the  stone  breakwater  and  thought 
of  mother. 

Life  seemed  so  short  just  then,  and  the  promised 
land  so  near,  it  hardly  seemed  worth  while  to  take 
anxious  thought  for  the  morrow,  and  to  wonder 
how  she  could  manage  the  housekeeping,  and  if 
'Liza  would  mind  what  she  said.  I  wonder  if  the 
7 


98  PEN. 

Israelites  stood  and  gazed  like  that  into  Canaan 
before  the  order  came  to  turn  back  into  the  wilder- 
ness, to  the  wanderings  hither  and  thither,  to  the 
pitching  and  striking  of  tents,  to  the  dreary  desert 
ways,  to  the  manna-gathering,  the  light  bread  that 
their  ungrateful  souls  loathed  ?  Daily  life,  with  its 
little  anxieties  and  trivial  occupations  and  pleas- 
ures, seems  at  such  times  very  like  the  wilderness ; 
but  just  for  that  day  Pen  could  gaze  into  the 
land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey,  which  seemed 
clearer  than  Portland  Bill  away  there  hi  the  dinr 
horizon. 

When  the  little  cracked  bell  rang  out  for  morn- 
ing prayer,  it  was  father  who  first  roused  up  and 
knocked  the  ashes  out  of  his  pipe  and  the  sand 
from  his  coat.  Pen  had  supposed  that  she  and 
Tre  would  go  to  church,  and  perhaps  Sandy,  who 
had  taken  to  church-going  lately,  since  mother  had 
not  been  able  to  go  with  them  ;  but  father  had  never 
gone  with  them  before,  and  his  going  strengthened 
the  feeling  that  everything  was  different,  and  that 
they  were  all  nearer  death  and  heaven ;  and  all  the 
service  seemed  a  continuation  of  the  burial  service, 
and  every  psalm  or  verse  in  the  Lessons  to  contain 
some  allusion  to  mother,  or  recall  some  word  or 
look  of  hers. 

Perhaps    with   Louis    Brand   there    was,    quite 


A   DAY   OF   REST.  99 

unconsciously,  a  little  bit  of  the  feeling  that  the 
country  people  have,  with  whom  the  Sunday  after 
a  funeral  is  a  great  occasion,  when  all  the  relations, 
including  those  who  are  dissenters  and  others  who 
usually  attend  no  place  of  worship,  betake  them- 
selves to  church  in  long  hat -bands  and  all  the  pomp 
and  panoply  of  woe,  and  are  given  the  place  of 
honor  in  the  free  seats,  and  expect  an  appropriate 
sermon,  during  which  sniffs  and  shakes  of  the  head, 
and  prolonged  and  audible  sighs  mark  any  particu- 
larly forcible  passage. 

It  was  a  sleepy,  old  church  with  high,  narrow 
pews,  and  frowning  galleries,  and  dusty  monuments, 
and  a  clergyman  to  match  in  a  chestnut  wig ;  the 
singing  was  rough  and  unpretending,  but  had  a 
certain  honest  ring  and  simple  sweetness  that  ech- 
oed in  after  times  in  the  memories  of  some  that 
heard  it,  even  through  the  rare  beauty  of  cathedral 
choirs  and  exquisitely  trained  voices.  The  quaint, 
old  rhymes  of  Tait  and  Brady  lingered  in  Pen's 
mind,  associated  with  the  murmur  of  the  sea  close 
outside,  and  a  shaft  of  dusty  sunshine  through  the 
greenish  glass  of  the  window,  striking  on  the  corner 
of  a  hatchment,  and  on  the  head  of  a  marble  cherub 
on  a  tomb  hard  by. 

"  In  tender  grass  He  makes  me  feed, 
And  gently  there  repose ; 


IOO  PEN. 

Then  leads  me  to  cool  shades  and  where 

Refreshing  water  flows. 
I  pass  the  gloomy  vale  of  death, 

From  fear  and  clanger  free, 
For  then  His  aiding  rod  and  staff 

Defend  and  comfort  me." 

Tre  dropped  asleep,  leaning  against  Sandy's 
arm,  during  the  long  doctrinal  sermon,  and  though 
Pen's  eyes  were  raised  with  due  propriety  to  the 
thick  crimson  fringe  of  the  pulpit  cushion,  over 
which,  from  time  to  time,  glimpses  were  afforded  of 
a  bit  of  the  preacher's  black  gown,  or  one  of  his 
whiskers,  I  am  afraid  that  she  did  not  follow  all  the 
intricacies  of  his  reasoning,  but  that  her  thoughts 
were  away  by  the  flower-covered  grave,  or  in  the 
Paradise  of  gentle  repose  to  which  that  grave 
seemed  the  gate. 

In  the  afternoon  they  were  to  have  gone  up  to 
Monkton,  but  the  beautiful  morning  had  clouded 
over  and  a  small  persistent  rain  came  on,  and 
Sandy  found  that  Monkton  had  very  strict  views  as 
to  keeping  the  Sabbath  as  regards  the  hire  of  any 
sort  of  conveyance,  or  making  any  exertion  to  get 
one  ready,  or  even  exercising  their  minds  to  think 
on  the  question. 

It  was  a  disappointment  to  the  children,  but 
Sandy,  realizing  the  sadness  of  a  wet  churchyard 
and  lowering  clouds,  and  of  half-faded  flowers 


A  DAY   OF   REST.  IOI 

washed  and  shattered  by  the  rain,  was  not  sorry  that 
it  was  out  of  the  question  getting  there,  and  that 
the  children  would  carry  away  the  memory  of  the 
grave  with  the  sunset  light  resting  on  it,  and  the 
flowers  still  fresh  and  fragrant ;  and  Pen  was  fain 
to  confess  that  she  was  still  tired,  and  that  a  long 
walk,  especially  in  the  rain,  was  not  very  desirable, 
and  was  quite  impossible  for  Tre,  who  yet  would 
never  have  consented  to  stay  behind  if  she  had 
gone. 

So  they  sat  in  the  little  bow-window  of  the  sit- 
ting-room, and  watched  the  scuds  of  rain  sweeping 
across  the  sea,  sometimes  mixing  up  sea  and  sky 
into  one  gray  misty  mass,  sometimes  clearing  off 
and  showing  an  indigo,  hard  horizon  against  the 
sky.  Father  was  asleep  on  the  horsehair  sofa  be- 
hind, so  Sandy  and  Pen  and  Tre  could  talk  freely 
of  mother,  not  in  that  impossible,  unnatural  way 
into  which  we  fall  in  speaking  of  the  dead,  but  as 
a  living  person,  as  of  course  she  was,  not  changed 
by  that  simple  episode  in  life,  by  that  mere  "  pass- 
ing from  this  room  into  the  next "  which  we  call 
death. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE    FAMILY    CONSTELLATION. 

"AT  any  rate  I  shall  be  close  at  hand  to  keep 
-tV  an  eye  on  the  children,"  Sandy  had  told 
himself  when  he  heard  Louis  Brand's  decisive  re- 
fusal to  let  Pen  and  Tre  go  to  Highfield ;  but  it 
was  not  a  fortnight  after  the  funeral  when  a  letter 
arrived  which  seemed  likely  to  introduce  an  im- 
portant change  into  his  life,  and  at  all  events  called 
him  imperatively  away  from  Purton  Street  for  a 
week  or  more. 

Sandy  had  so  entirely  fallen  into  being  an  ad- 
junct of  the  Brand  family  that,  certainly,  Pen  and 
Tre  regarded  him  as  their  own  special  belonging, 
and  I  think  I  have  fallen  into  so  regarding  him, 
and  may  have  impressed  the  reader  in  the  same 
way.  But  Sandy  Maclaren  had  a  distinct  indi- 
viduality of  his  own,  and  was  a  member  of  a  family 
who,  no  doubt,  on  their  side,  regarded  him  merely 
as  a  rather  far-off  satellite  of  theirs,  a  sort  of  Geor- 
gium  Sidus,  <3r  some  still  more  remote  member  of 
the  solar  system,  toiling  round  an  enormous  orbit, 


THE   FAMILY   CONSTELLATION.          10$ 

getting  the  very  smallest  possible  amount  of  light 
and  heat  from  Phoebus  Apollo,  and  not  even  within 
sight,  by  the  naked  eye,  of  the  more  favored  plan- 
ets, who  bask  in  the  countenance  of  the  sun-god. 
It  seems  to  me,  who,  as  the  reader  will  readily  per- 
ceive, have  not  a  deep  knowledge  of  astronomy, 
and  but  a  vague  notion  of  the  laws  of  gravity  and 
centrifugal  force,  that  it  is  somewhat  strange  that 
these  poor,  dull,  painstaking,  little  planets  do  not 
go  off  and  join  some  other  system  where  more  ad- 
vantages are  offered.  In  human  solar  systems  I 
think  they  do,  though  the  centres  of  such  systems 
sometimes  like  to  imagine  that  the  far-off  cousins 
and  distant  relations  are  still  revolving  round  them, 
and  getting  all  their  warmth  and  illumination  from 
them. 

When  Sandy  Maclaren's  mother  died,  which,  as 
I  think  I  have  stated,  was  while  he  was  yet  a  little 
boy,  his  father  was  out  in  China  in  a  big  tea-house 
at  Shanghai.  Though  he  had  only  enjoyed  the 
society  of  his  wife  for  about  a  quarter  of  the  short 
time  that  their  married  life  lasted,  as  her  health 
would  not  allow  of  her  remaining  at  Shanghai,  or 
his  income  allow  of  his  leaving  it,  he  took  the 
news  of  her  death  so  deeply  to  heart,  that  he  never 
came  back  to  England,  and  his  two  little  boys, 
Sandy  and  his  elder  brother  Tom,  were  quartered 


104  PEN. 

out  among  their  relations  and  sent  to  school  as 
soon  as  possible.  They  met  with  a  great  deal  of 
kindness  from  one  and  another,  but  kindness  of  a 
desultory  sort  which  in  no  way  makes  up  for  the 
very  dullest  and  strictest  of  homes.  They  got  a 
great  deal  of  going  to  the  theatre  with  the  butler,  and 
plenty  of  high  feeding,  and  unlimited  confectionery, 
and  handsome  tips,  when  they  went  back  to  school, 
when  kind-hearted  uncles  and  aunts  felt  qualms  of 
conscience  that  the  holidays  had  not  been  very 
amusing  for  the  poor  boys.  Hampers  of  good 
things  were  sent  to  them,  not  on  their  birthdays 
(how  could  you  expect  uncles  and  aunts,  however 
kind,  to  remember  such  trifles  as  school-boys'  birth- 
days?), ordered  wholesale  and  packed  at  Fortnum 
and  Mason's,  to  the  envy  and  admiration  of  other 
boys,  who  punctually  on  their  birthdays  received 
modest,  little  baskets,  the  contents  of  which  had 
each  its  home  history,  from  the  pie  that  mother 
made  with  her  very  own  hands,  to  the  dusky,  little 
cake  sent  with  baby's  love. 

School-boys  are  rather  difficult  visitors  some- 
times, and  Tom  and  Sandy  Maclaren,  good,  hon- 
est, simple-minded  creatures  as  they  were,  were 
not  favorable  specimens  of  the  genus,  though  I 
dare  say,  if  they  had  had  a  mother  to  admire  them 
and  make  much  of  them,  and  a  home  where  they 


THE   FAMILY   CONSTELLATION.          10$ 

could  feel  entirely  at  their  ease,  their  awkwardness 
would  not  have  been  so  apparent.  They  were  big, 
raw-boned  creatures,  who  grew  outrageously  fast, 
and  always  arrived  from  school  with  two  or  three 
inches  of  wrist  _and  ankle  showing  at  the  end  of 
much  dilapidated  sleeves  and  trousers;  and  they 
did  not  seem  even  to  be  able  to  estimate  the  length 
of  their  members  accurately  themselves,  for  they 
were  always  knocking  things  over  and  kicking  and 
trampling  about ;  and  their  mental  ungainliness 
was  almost  as  bad,  and  there  was  no  knowing  what 
awkward  or  inconveniently  truthful  remark  they 
might  make  next. 

I  suppose  hobbledehoyishness  is  a  necessary 
malady  of  youth,  though  some  boys  get  through 
it  quickly,  and  take  the  disease  so  lightly,  that 
they  are  not  intolerable  to  themselves  or  their 
friends,  to  any  perceptible  extent ;  but  Tom  and 
Sandy  took  the  complaint  in  its  most  violent  form, 
as  they  had  done  all  the  infantile  maladies  — 
whooping-cough,  measles,  scarlatina,  and  mumps 
generally ;  also  managing  to  have  them  at  the 
most  inconvenient  times  to  themselves  and  other 
people,  before  an  examination,  or  during  the  prep- 
arations for  a  family  gathering  or  children's  party, 
so  that  their  Aunt  Isabel  used  to  say  that  she  never 
sent  out  invitations  during  the  holidays  without 


106  PEN.. 

calculating  how  many  infectious  maladies  still  re- 
mained within  the  capability  of  those  unlucky 
boys.  But  luckily  hobbledehoy  awkwardness  is 
not  infectious,  or  else  Tom  and  Sandy  might  have 
dealt  destruction  to  all  the  elegance  and  grace  they 
came  in  contact  with  for  many  years,  for  Sandy 
could  not  be  said  to  have  lost  all  the  symptoms 
even  when  my  story  begins,  when  he  was  thirty- 
five  years  of  age,  and  might  have  been  expected 
to  have  left  such  weaknesses  nearly  twenty  years 
behind  him. 

When  they  left  school  Tom  went  out  to  join  his 
father  in  Shanghai,  a  berth  having  been  offered 
him  in  the  same  house ;  and  Sandy  dropped  into 
a  situation  in  a  big  mercantile  house  in  London,  an 
arrangement  which  his  relations  inwardly  groaned 
over,  as  entailing  much  painful  exercise  of  hos- 
pitality on  their  parts,  not  limited  to  Christmas  and 
Midsummer  holidays,  but  scattered  broadcast  over 
the  whole  year,  and  not  allowing  of  being  helped 
off  by  tips  or  confectionery,  or  deputed  to  the 
butler. 

But  things  often  turn  out  better  than  we  expect, 
and  the  very  gaucherie  that  made  Sandy  such  a 
very  awkward  guest,  made  him  also  a  very  unwill- 
ing one,  so  that  consciences  could  be  safely  salved 
by  writing  dozens  of  affectionate  invitations,  full  of 


THE   FAMILY  CONSTELLATION.          IO/ 

playful  scolding  for  never  going  near  them,  end 
kindly  imperious  commands  to  report  himself  with- 
out delay,  without  any  risk  of  his  availing  himself 
of  them  too  frequently.  And  as  time  passed  on, 
he  somehow  fell  out  of  sight  altogether,  and  con- 
sciences ceased  to  prick,  so  did  not  require  salving, 
and  Jupiter  and  Venus  rolled  comfortably  round 
their  easy  little  orbits  with  hardly  a  thought  for 
poor  hobbledehoy  Georgium  Sidus  out  there  in  the 
dark. 

And  meanwhile,  as  I  have  said,  this  poor  Geor- 
gium Sidus  had  found  another  constellation  when 
he  was  very  much  nearer  the  sun ;  in  fact  Pen 
and  Tre  sometimes  thought  he  was  the  sun  itself, 
round  which  they  revolved,  for  they  associated 
all  the  brightness  and  cheerfulness  of  their  lives 
with  him. 

Tom  had  a  different  experience  of  life.  He  ac- 
tually got  engaged  on  the  voyage  out,  being  then 
only  eighteen,  and  quite  as  intensely  hobbledehoy- 
ish  as  Sandy.  I  do  not  know  how  it  happened, 
but  on  a  sea-voyage  all  sorts  of  extraordinary  phe- 
nomena occur,  and  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
Mrs.  Tom  was  a  few  years  older  than  her  husband, 
and  was  sensible  enough  to  see  what  a  good  fellow 
he  was  in  spite  of  his  large  red  ears,  and  outra- 
geous blushes  and  unmanageable  hands;  but  I 


108  PEN. 

really  do  not  know  much  about  her,  for  she  never 
came  back  to  England,  and  died  six  months  before 
my  story  begins,  shortly  before  Sandy's  father  went 
to  rejoin  his  wife. 

The  days  for  making  large  fortunes  in  China  are 
long  since  past,  as  every  one  connected  with  China 
trade  takes  pains  to  inform  you,  especially  if  you 
happen  to  have  sons  that  you  are  anxious  to  start 
in  life ;  but,  for  the  matter  of  that,  the  same  is 
curiously  enough  the  case  in  all  other  professions 
or  branches  of  industry  at  home  and  abroad,  and 
each  person  particularly  depreciates  the  chances  of 
success  in  his  own  special  department,  and  hints 
that  any  other  would  be  better.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
when  Sandy's  father  died,  he  left  behind  him  a 
tidy,  little  fortune  to  his  two  sons,  leaving  the  most 
to  Tom,  as  being  the  eldest  and  having  a  wife  and 
son.  And  as  Tom  himself  had  not  done  badly 
during  his  twenty  years  in  China,  the  idea  came 
into  his  head  that  there  was  no  reason  for  further 
exertions,  and  that  he  might  as  well  come  home 
and  settle  in  England  and  bring  up  his  son  as  a 
country  gentleman.  He  was  not  a  man  to  act 
hastily  or  to  talk  much  beforehand  of  what  he 
was  going  to  do,  so  it  took  all  the  community  at 
Shanghai  by  surprise  when  they  heard  that  Tom 
Maclaren  and  his  boy  were  leaving  for  England ; 


THE   FAMILY   CONSTELLATION.          1 09 

and  it  took  Sandy  still  more  by  surprise  when  a 
letter  from  Tom  announced  his  arrival  by  the  next 
boat,  and  requested  Sandy  to  come  and  meet  him 
at  Brindisi.  And  as  the  letter  came,  as  I  have 
said,  just  a  fortnight  after  Mrs.  Brand's  funeral, 
and  when  he  specially  wanted  to  be  near  the 
children,  the  surprise  was  not  altogether  one  o 
unmixed  pleasure. 

A  brother  in  China  is  a  different  thing  to  a 
brother  in  England,  and  your  duties  to  him  are 
of  a  different  character,  and  more  varied  than 
those  to  the  brother  in  China,  for  whom  you  can 
do  little  more  than  write  newsy  letters  at  regular 
intervals,  and  occasionally  execute  commissions 
carefully  and  patiently,  and  endure  with  resigna- 
tion the  ingratitude  and  discontent  that  await  your 
best  efforts  in  this  direction.  But  a  brother  in 
England  may  demand  a  good  deal  more  than  this ; 
and  as  the  very  first  call  on  his  fraternal  duty  was 
to  start  forthwith  for  Brindisi,  Sandy  gloomily  anti- 
cipated that  the  like  might  easily  happen  in  the 
future,  and  that  he  would  no  longer  be  free  to 
come  and  go  as  he  liked ;  in  fact  he  suddenly 
felt  himself  pulled  back  into  the  family  constella- 
tion, and  he  found  himself  looking  ruefully  at  his 
dress-coat,  which  was  creased  and  crumpled  in  a 
manner  terrible  to  behold,  and  of  an  antiquated  cut 


1 10  PEN. 

that  betrayed  how  many  years  ago  it  had  left  the 
tailor's  hands ;  with  a  dreadful  vision  floating  be- 
fore his  eyes  of  long  dinner-parties  and  evenings 
of  insupportable  boredom,  endured  in  the  service 
of  that  autocrat,  Society.  The  only  consolation  in 
the  prospect  was  that  there  were  no  womenfolks 
to  deal  with,  for  Sandy  fancied  himself  a  woman- 
hater,  never  counting  into  the  abhorred  sex  Mrs. 
Brand,  who  was  more  than  half  an  angel,  or  Pen, 
or  Tre,  who  were  children,  or  indeed  any  other 
feminine  creature  who  was  kind  to  him  or  help- 
less ;  so  that  the  exceptions  were  likely  to  multiply 
indefinitely  with  all  the  women  Sandy  was  brought 
into  contact  with ;  for  if  you  look  round  with  as 
little  discernment  and  as  simple  a  faith  as  Sandy 
possessed,  on  all  the  women  you  know,  and  pick 
out  all  the  kind  and  helpless  ones,  there  would 
not  be  very  many  left  to  represent  the  heartless, 
worldly,  little-minded,  capricious  creature  that 
Sandy  called  woman  in  the  abstract. 

Unless  those  twenty  years  had  changed  Tom  to 
an  altogether  different  character,  he  was  not  likely 
to  be  devoted  to  society,  and  as  to  the  child  — 
why !  by  Jove  !  he  was  not  a  child,  he  must  be 
sixteen  or  seventeen,  nearly  as  old,  in  fact,  as  Tom 
when  they  parted  on  the  deck  of  the  steamer  at 
Southampton  and  thought  themselves  quite  men ; 


THE   FAMILY   CONSTELLATION.          Ill 

and  Sandy,  who  had  unconsciously  been  thinking 
of  pantomimes  and  the  Crystal  Palace,  and  plan- 
ning various  amusements  suitable  to  a  school-boy 
of  ten  or  eleven,  suddenly  realized  that  this  young 
Tom  would  be  a  man,  at  any  rate  in  his  own 
estimation. 

It  would  be,  Sandy  thought,  like  getting  back 
the  same  Tom  who  left  him  twenty  years  ago,  and 
another  who  might  be  a  bit  changed  and  twenty 
years  older. 


CHAPTER  X. 

ONLY    FOR   A    FORTNIGHT. 

A  FFAIRS  at  Purton  Street  were  all  going 
-£~JL  smoothly.  Mr.  Brand  was  working  with 
an  industry  surprising  to  see,  rising  early,  sitting 
up  late,  never  to  be  seen  without  a  palette  on  his 
thumb  and  many  smears  of  paint  on  the  velvet 
coat.  Sandy  felt  a  little  bit  distrustful  of  this 
ardor,  which  seemed  too  spasmodic  to  last ;  and 
he  never  went  into  No.  37,  or  opened  the  studio 
door,  without  a  presentiment  that  a  reaction  might 
have  set  in,  and  that  he  would  find  Louis  Brand 
stretched  at  full  length  on  the  divan  by  the  studio 
fire,  with  his  heels  considerably  higher  than  his 
head,  and  a  newspaper  in  his  hand,  and  his  palette 
and  brushes  tossed  into  a  corner,  and  his  picture 
turned  with  its  face  to  the  wall. 

But,  at  any  rate,  so  far  his  fears  had  not  been 
realized,  and  when  he  hinted  the  advisability  of 
moderation  in  work,  as  less  likely  to  lead  to  ex- 
haustion of  energy,  Louis  Brand  looked  reproach- 
fully at  him,  and  said  something  about  his  mother- 


ONLY   FOR   A   FORTNIGHT.  113 

less  girls  supplying  a  stimulus  that  could  never 
fail  in  its  effect ;  and  Sandy  was  silent,  only  won- 
dering in  himself  that  the  sweet  mother's  face  had 
not  been  the  same  stimulus  all  the  past  years  when 
Louis  Brand  had  been  idle. 

Pen  too  was  proving  herself  a  most  capable  little 
housekeeper,  and  'Liza  was  everything  that  could 
be  wished,  and  rapidly  acquiring  the  airs  of  an 
old  and  valued  servant.  There  were,  of  course, 
occasional  little  rubs,  where  'Liza  did  not  show  the 
deference  that  sensitive  young  mistresses  are  apt 
to  expect,  and  exercised  her  private  judgment  too 
freely  on  such  matters  as  the  quantities  of  meat 
to  be  ordered,  or  the  sort  of  pudding  that  was  to 
appear  at  dinner.  Sandy  was  always  very  sym- 
pathetic, but,  being  a  man,  he  could  not  quite 
enter  into  the  pangs  that  these  trifles  inflicted  on 
Pen's  dignity,  and  he  was  also  inclined  to  take  a 
broader  view  of  housekeeping  expenses,  and  to 
feel  that  tears  were  wasted  over  a  greasy  butcher's 
book  when  the  weekly  amount  came  to  a  few  more 
pence  than  was  expected ;  and  to  think  that  if 
people  ate  more  of  one  thing,  they  were  likely  to 
eat  less  of  another,  which  is  a  very  difficult  fact  for 
young  housekeepers  to  grasp. 

Sandy  used  to  declare  that  he  could  reckon  the 
amount  of  the  weekly  bills  by  the  lines  on  Pen's 
8 


114  PEN. 

forehead,  as  she  drew  her  eyebrows  together  in  an 
anxious,  little  frown ;  and  he  carried  on  the  joke  so 
far,  that  Tre  actually  grew  to  believe  it  was  a  fact, 
and  to  fancy  she  could  make  out  figures  on  Pen's 
forehead  under  the  rings  of  hair  that  strayed  over 
it  as  if  to  protest  that  she  was  nothing  more  than  a 
curly-headed  child  still,  and  not  a  sober,  anxious 
woman,  with  all  the  cares  of  housekeeping  and  re- 
sponsibility on  her  shoulders. 

Sandy  took  all  sorts  of  precautions  on  the  chil- 
dren's account  for  the  fortnight  that  he  should  be 
away  ;  it  was  to  be  a  fortnight  at  the  very  outside, 
ten  days,  or  even  a  week  perhaps,  would  see  him 
back  again,  and  not  much  harm  could  happen  in 
that  time.  He  laid  in  what  seemed  to  Pen  a  mag- 
nificent store  of  small  additions  to  the  commissariat 
department,  cakes  and  biscuits,  chocolate  and  pot- 
ted meats ;  and  he  would  dearly  have  liked  to  have 
left  a  small  sum  of  money  to  help  out  the  weekly 
allowance,  but  he  had  a  vivid  remembrance  of  Mrs. 
Brand's  face  one  day  when  the  barrenness  of  the 
land  had  become  very  conspicuous,  and  Sandy's 
hand,  without  his  thinking  of  it,  had  found  its  way 
to  his  pocket.  The  color  had  rushed  into  her 
sweet,  pale  face,  and  there  had  been  a  silent,  elo- 
quent deprecation  in  her  eyes  and  hands,  that 
needed  no  words  to  drive  it  home  to  his  very 


ONLY   FOR  A   FORTNIGHT.  115 

heart.  Even  presents  in  kind  must  be  kept  within 
certain  limits  —  limits  that  were  tacitly  understood 
between  them,  though  Mrs.  Brand  had  none  of 
that  want  of  generosity  which  is  shown  even  more 
distinctly  by  the  dislike  of  receiving  than  by  grudg- 
ing in  giving.  And  now  she  was  gone  the  same 
feeling  remained  with  Sandy,  strengthened  by  the 
conviction  that  it  was  better  for  Louis  Brand  to 
feel  the  responsibility  on  his  shoulders,  especially  as 
it  seemed  to  inspire  him  with  such  unusual  activity, 
though  sometimes  it  caused  Sandy  quite  acute  pain 
to  resist  producing  a  coin  out  of  his  pocket,  that 
might  have  cleared  away  the  lines  from  Pen's  fore- 
head and  set  everything  straight. 

He  gave  'Liza  a  good  talking  to  before  he  went 
away;  and  I  strongly  suspect  he  gave  her  some- 
thing besides  a  talking  to,  as  people  are  not  apt  to 
manifest  enthusiasm  for  the  givers  of  mere  words, 
or  to  talk  of  "  'an'some  is  as  'an'some  does,"  and 
"parties  as  is  perfick  gentlemen,"  when  alluding 
to  them. 

"I  shall  be  back  in  a  fortnight,"  Sandy  said  — 
at  least  those,  I  think,  were  his  words,  for  Tre  was 
clinging  round  his  neck  and  his  voice  had  a  muf- 
fled sound  occasionally  —  "  but  if  you  want  me  — 
which,  of  course,  you  won't  —  or  if  anything  hap- 
pens —  and  why  should  it  ?  —  send  round  to  my 


Il6  PEN. 

lodgings,  and  Mrs.  Jones  will  know  how  to  get 
at  me,  and  when  I  come  home  —  when  I  come 
home  "  —  and  actually  the  great  stupid  Scotch- 
man's voice  shook  and  trembled  as  if  home  were 
something  tender  and  beautiful  to  him,  and  not 
shabby,  cheap  lodgings  in  Dalston,  hard  by  Purton 
Street,  and  two  little  motherless  girls  —  "  when  I 
come  home  it  will  be  warm  weather,  and  we  will  go 
out  for  a  long,  long  day  in  the  country,  and  catch 
butterflies,  eh,  little  Tre?  " 

It  was  only  to  Tre  he  talked  ;  with  Tre  that  he 
made  plans  of  what  they  would  do  on  his  return ; 
with  Tre  that  he  arranged  sundry  little  matters  of 
business,  such  as  the  halfpenny  every  other  day  to 
be  given  to  a  crossing-sweeper  in  whom  they  were 
mutually  interested ;  but  he  was  looking  at  Pen  all 
the  time  —  Pen  with  one  of  father's  socks  drawn 
over  her  hand  and  a  large  darning-needle  going 
backwards  and  forwards  laboriously,  if  not  very 
scientifically,  looking  so  small  and  so  very  childish, 
in  spite  of,  or  rather  in  consequence  of,  the  big 
armchair  in  which  she  sat,  and  the  overflowing 
work-basket,  and  the  heap  of  tradesmen's  books, 
and  the  bunch  of  keys. 

She  was  too  busy  with  her  darning  to  look  up, 
or  perhaps  she  could  not  quite  trust  her  eyes  to 
keep  as  steady  and  composed  as  befits  the  head 


ONLY   FOR  A   FORTNIGHT.  1 1/ 

of  a  household,  and  to  hide  the  bitter  feeling  of 
loneliness  that  was  filling  her  heart,  at  the  pros- 
pect of  even  that  fortnight  without  Sandy.  It 
seemed  like  another  parting  from  mother,  as  if 
she  and  the  flower-covered  grave  and  the  sunny 
funeral  were  farther  off  now  that  she  would  have 
no  one  but  Tre  to  talk  to  about  them ;  it  was 
a  long  day's  march  into  the  wilderness,  away 
from  the  Promised  Land,  that  day  that  Sandy 
went. 

It  was  a  relief  when  the  parting  was  over  and 
Sandy  had  gone  off  running,  pretending  he  should 
be  late  for  the  train,  and  leaving  Pen  engaged  in 
comforting  Tre,  whose  grief  was  of  a  loud  and  de- 
monstrative character,  and  whose  age  permitted 
of  her  feelings  being  expressed  without  any  at- 
tempt at  self-restraint,  lying  face  downwards  on 
the  hearth-rug  and  kicking  in  answer  to  well-meant 
attempts  at  consolation.  What  a  tremendous  relief 
it  would  be  in  after  years,  sometimes  if  we  might 
do  this  —  roar  for  the  very  disquietness  of  our 
heart,  and  kick  out  right  and  left  recklessly,  with- 
out regard  for  appearances  or  the  shins  of  our 
sympathizing  friends,  whose  words  sometimes  give 
us  such  exquisite  pain. 

"  It  will  only  be  for  a  fortnight  at  the  very  out- 
side," Sandy  kept  saying  to  himself.  "It  shall 


1 1 8  PEN. 

be  only  a  fortnight  at  the  outside.  Even  if  Tom 
and  the  boy  want  to  loiter  about  on  the  way,  I 
am  not  obliged  to  stay  with  them.  I  will  be  back 
in  a  fortnight !  What  can  prevent?  " 

And  perhaps  it  was  the  rattle  and  noise  of  the 
Strand,  as  his  hansom  clattered  into  Charing  Cross 
Station,  that  prevented  his  hearing  the  answer  to 
this  question  of  the  future ;  or  perhaps  the  future 
mercifully  keeps  its  counsel  and  is  silent  when 
we  question  it. 

"  What  can  prevent? " 

"  Circumstances." 

He  had  found  no  difficulty  in  making  arrange- 
ments for  this  fortnight's  leave  of  absence  from  his 
office.  Indeed  the  senior  partner,  with  what  Sandy 
felt  to  be  quite  officious  good-nature,  had  suggested 
a  longer  holiday,  and  had  treated  the  assurances 
that  Sandy  would  be  back  punctually  at  the  end 
of  a  fortnight  in  a  light  and  airy  way,  as  if  it  were 
of  no  consequence ;  instead  of  insisting  on  his 
return  at  a  given  date,  which  would  have  been 
a  convenience  for  quotation  to  Tom  in  case  of  a 
wish  for  delay.  Sandy  was  in  high  esteem  with 
his  chiefs;  the  other  clerks  enviously  attributed 
it  to  the  fact  that  it  was  known  that  Maclaren 
had  plenty  of  private  means,  and  did  not  care 
about  keeping  his  situation  at  all,  and  would  resign 


ONLY   FOR  A   FORTNIGHT.  119 

it  any  day  if  it  interfered  with  his  plans.  They 
used  to  say  that  Maclaren  might  do  pretty  much 
as  he  liked,  and  do  things  that  would  have  cost  the 
other  clerks  their  situations,  which  situations  meant 
to  them  their  bread  and  butter,  and  with  some  of 
them  the  bread  and  butter  of  a  wife  and  a  couple 
of  babies,  which  is  not  bread  and  butter  that  can 
be  lightly  dispensed  with. 

It  certainly  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  what  is 
of  little  value  to  a  person  is  not  likely  to  be  lost, 
a  truth  which  each  one  can  illustrate  from  his  own 
experience,  remembering  how  the  empty  purse, 
or  broken  pen-knife,  or  pocket-handkerchief  with 
a  hole  in  it,  or  cracked  teacup  sticks  by  you  and 
turns  up  in  the  most  extraordinary  manner,  through 
all  sorts  of  changes  and  chances ;  while  the  well- 
lined  porte-monnaie,  or  sharp  blade,  handkerchief 
from  a  new  and  expensive  set,  or  Dresden  cup, 
comes  to  grief  or  disappears  in  a  manner  little 
short  of  miraculous.  And  it  is  the  same,  if  you 
come  to  think  of  it,  with  other  possessions  of  ours 
—  our  dignity,  our  reputation,  our  health,  our  life, 
the  less  one  thinks  of  them  the  less  danger  we  seem 
to  run  of  losing  them. 

So  perhaps  the  other  clerks  were  right,  and  the 
amiability  of  the  chiefs  to  Sandy  was  owing  to  the 
fact  that  he  did  not  care  a  snap  if  they  were  amia- 


I2O  PEN. 

ble  or  not,  and  not  to  be  attributed  in  any  way  to 
eighteen  years  and  more  steady  service  and  punc- 
tuality, and  general,  unobtrusive  capability  of  doing 
work,  which  are  by  no  means  invariable  character- 
istics of  the  genus  clerk. 


CHAPTER    XI. 

COMING   BACK. 

IT  was  circumstances  that  prevented  Sandy  from 
finding  his  way  back  to  London  and  to  Purton 
Street,  as  he  had  firmly  and  confidently  intended 
and  expected,  at  the  end  of  a  fortnight.  Circum- 
stances are  stubborn  things ;  you  hear,  to  be  sure, 
of  people  rising  superior  to  them ;  but  I  think  it 
is  really  the  circumstances  that  raise  the  hero,  just 
as  they  press  another  down,  without  any  apparent 
weakness  or  fault  of  his  own.  Circumstances  are 
against  some  people  all  through  life,  standing  in 
the  way  of  all  their  cherished  plans  and  hopes 
and  ambitions ;  and  some  we  speak  of  as  the  sport 
of  circumstances,  as  they  seem  to  be  tossed  up 
and  down,  hither  and  thither,  like  driftwood  on  a 
stormy  sea.  We  are  apt  to  consider  circumstances 
as  cold,  hard,  unresponsive  things,  often  pitiless 
and  relentless,  against  which  we  fling  ourselves  in 
useless  vain  struggles  with  the  inevitable ;  to  which 
we  must  needs  submit  with  bitter,  grudging  acqui- 
escence. We  cannot  always  see,  any  more  than 


122  PEN. 

Balaam  could,  the  angel  of  the  Lord  standing  in  a 
path  of  the  vineyards,  a  wall  being  on  this  side 
and  a  wall  on  that  side,  or  regard  circumstances 
as  David  did  —  "  The  hills  stand  about  Jerusa- 
lem ;  even  so  standeth  the  Lord  round  about  his 
people." 

The  circumstances  which  prevented  Sandy  from 
coming  back  to  England  at  the  time  fixed  were 
first  of  all  the  breaking  down  of  the  engines  in  the 
steamer  on  which  Tom  and  his  son  were  coming  up 
the  Red  Sea,  something  very  trifling,  part  of  the 
gear  overheated,  or  a  defective  bolt  in  that  myste- 
rious region  where  bright  steel  elbows  work,  and 
wheels  turn,  and  darkened  faces  look  up  with  a 
glow  on  them  from  the  furnaces,  and  there  is  a 
throbbing  and  quivering  of  hot  air,  and  a  pervad- 
ing smell  of  oil.  So  Sandy  found  a  telegram 
awaiting  him  at  Brindisi,  to  say  that  they  should 
have  to  stop  at  Suez  or  Port  Said  for  the  next  boat, 
which  would  be  in  a  week's  time ;  and  there  was 
nothing  for  it  but  to  wait,  which  Sandy  did  in 
much  discontent  and  unwillingness  and  heat,  and 
many  flies  and  mosquitoes  in  a  big  barren  hotel, 
where  they  were  used  to  people  coming  and  going, 
and  did  not  at  all  lay  themselves  out  to  make  the 
place  delightful  to  people  who  stayed  longer. 

There  were  a  few  fellow-sufferers,  who  were  also 


COMING  BACK.  123 

awaiting  the  arrival  of  the  steamer,  but  Sandy  was 
in  no  mood  to  be  sociable  or  even  sympathetic, 
and  he  only  exchanged  uninterested  glances  from 
over  the  elderly  English  newspaper  which  he  held 
continually  before  his  eyes,  though  he  must  have 
had  its  contents  pretty  well  by  heart. 

No  doubt  casual  observers  set  him  down  as 
quite  a  typical  English  tourist,  as  he  sat  at  the 
table  d'hote  stiff  and  unsociable,  and  ate  his  dinner 
in  solemn  silence,  except  when  he  ordered  any- 
thing of  the  polyglot  waiter,  in  very  distinct  Eng- 
lish, looking  hard  and  distrustfully  at  the  dishes 
handed  to  him,  as  if  they  might  contain  unholy  in- 
gredients that  would  stink  in  the  nostrils  of  British 
subjects. 

It  would  have  surprised  these  lookers-on  if  they 
could  have  beheld  the  transformation  that  would 
have  been  effected  if  the  chairs  on  either  side  of 
him  had  been  occupied  by  Pen  and  Tre ;  and  I 
think  Sandy  would  have  been  quite  as  much  sur- 
prised himself  to  find  what  a  thoroughly  amusing 
place  dirty,  little  Brindisi  had  become  all  of  a  sud- 
den if  he  could  have  looked  at  it  through  the 
medium  of  Tre's  young  eyes. 

He  could  not  speak  a  word  of  Italian,  and  his 
only  experience  of  foreigners  were  the  decidedly 
shady  ones  he  occasionally  came  across  in  the 


124  PEN- 

City,  or  in  the  artistic  society  affected  by  Louis 
Brand.  He  had  a  suspicious  feeling  that  all  the 
picturesque  groups  and  graceful  postures,  the  "little 
bits  "  as  Louis  Brand  would  have  called  them,  that 
he  saw  at  every  turn  in  his  aimless  wanderings 
about  the  narrow,  dirty,  little  streets  of  the  town, 
and  on  the  quays,  were  got  up  for  effect,  and  had 
something  stagey  and  unreal  about  them,  like  a 
scene  in  an  opera,  or  the  arrangement  of  models 
for  an  artist.  The  groups  of  chattering  women 
in  the  market  with  their  gay-colored  skirts  and 
handkerchiefs  and  bright  eyes,  the  bronzed  men, 
stretched  asleep  in  the  sun  in  graceful  attitudes  of 
perfect  repose  —  an  utter  abandon  of  laziness  such 
as  is  never  attained  by  the  most  indolent  of  Eng- 
lishmen —  the  lizards,  darting  hither  and  thither 
on  the  stones,  on  which  the  maiden-hair  fern  grew 
in  every  nook,  the  clear  outlines,  the  lovely  broad 
shadows,  even  the  unclouded  blue  sky  up  above 
the  solemn  gray  olive-trees,  and  the  broad,  sunny 
stretch  of  the  azure  Mediterranean,  this  unappre- 
ciative,  sulky  Englishman  looked  at  merely  as  he 
would  at  a  sufficiently  well-painted  drop-scene, 
which  is  down  a  trifle  too  long  and  retards  the 
progress  of  the  serious  business  of  the  piece. 

And  at  the  end  of  that  week  at  Brindisi,  another 
telegram  came  to  say  that  young  Tom  had  fallen 


COMING   BACK.  125 

ill,  and  that  they  were  at  Port  Said,  and  that 
Sandy  must  come  on  by  the  first  boat.  And  at 
Port  Said  young  Tom  nearly  ended  his  journey 
for  good  and  all,  and  lay  for  weeks  so  near  this 
life's  terminus,  that  neither  Sandy  nor  old  Tom 
could  spare  many  thoughts  for  anything  else. 
They  met  over  the  lad's  sick-bed  as  if  they  had 
never  parted.  I  think  the  first  words  Tom  said 
to  Sandy  were  "  Hollo,  just  hand  me  that  cup ;  " 
and  Sandy  to  Tom,  "  He  wants  another  pillow ; " 
and  I  am  sure  if  during  these  first  few  days 
Sandy  had  been  asked  if  Tom  had  altered,  he 
could  not  have  told  you ;  and  it  only  dawned  on 
him  after  some  time  that  his  brother  was  bald, 
a  fact  that  was  patent  to  the  most  superficial 
observer. 

Their  meeting  was  very  different  to  that  between 
Mrs.  Brand  and  her  sister,  though  the  separation 
had  been  longer ;  but  oceans  and  continents, 
mountains  and  rivers,  are  nothing  compared  to 
silence  and  estrangement,  to  separate  hearts  that 
may  even  be  beating  side  by  side. 

If  young  Tom  had  died,  old  Tom  would  have 
gone  straight  back  to  China.  He  was  wrapped  up 
in  the  lad,  and  if  death's  chill  hand  had  stripped 
that  wrap  off  him,  and  left  him  cold  and  shivering, 
just  Tom  Maclaren  without  wife  or  boy,  he  would 


126  PEN. 

have  had  no  heart  to  clothe  himself  with  fresh 
interests,  but  would  have  sunk  into  old  age  at  a 
time  of  life  when  to  many  men  life  is  only  just 
beginning. 

But  young  Tom  got  better,  not  well  all  at  once, 
of  course,  after  so  serious  an  attack ;  and  it  was 
a  very  scarecrow  young  Tom  that  his  father  and 
Sandy  brought  back  by  slow  stages,  very  helpless 
and  dependent,  given  to  sudden  and  unaccount- 
able relapses,  and  clinging  to  Sandy  as  much  as  he 
did  to  his  father.  Whenever  there  was  a  talk  of 
Sandy  leaving  them  and  going  on  alone  to  Eng- 
land, there  was  always  a  bad  night  or  a  rise  in 
temperature,  which  brought  old  Tom  anxious  and 
apologetic  to  Sandy's  bedroom,  where,  hesitatingly 
and  dubiously  (for  Sandy  had  grown  ridiculously 
fond  of  this  long,  large- eyed,  young  Tom,  and  was 
sorely  torn  in  his  mind),  he  was  beginning  to  pack 
his  portmanteau  and  let  his  thoughts  fix  themselves 
on  Purton  Street,  and  his  departure  had  to  be 
postponed. 

He  had  heard  two  or  three  times  from  Louis 
Brand  during  the  first  fortnight  of  his  absence ; 
and  had  received  two  little  letters  from  Pen,  which 
he  read  and  re-read,  trying  to  make  out  meanings 
between  the  lines  of  stiff,  unformed  writing  and 
stiff,  unformed  expressions.  They  were  such  very 


COMING  BACK.  I2/ 

childish  letters,  it  was  quite  a  surprise  to  Sandy, 
remembering  how  in  many  ways  she  had  the  man- 
ners of  a  grown-up  girl;  but  on  reflection  he 
guessed  what  was  indeed  the  fact,  that  Pen  had 
never  written  a  letter  in  her  life  before,  and  that, 
though  it  was  not  a  case  of  squaring  her  elbows 
and  leaning  her  cheek  on  one  arm  and  putting  her 
tongue  out,  as  her  sisters  in  a  lower  rank  might 
have  done,  still  writing  the  letters  was  no  less  a 
work  of  great  mental  difficulty,  and  took  a  length 
of  time  that  would  appear  almost  incredible  to 
most  school-girls  of  her  age,  who  carry  on  a  volu- 
minous correspondence  with  the  greatest  facility. 
She  had  never  been  separated  from  her  mother  till 
death  did  them  part,  so  she  had  never  had  that 
best  of  educations  in  the  art  of  letter-writing,  cor- 
respondence with  a  mother ;  nor  had  she  indeed  a 
single  written  word  of  love  of  her  mother's  to  read 
over  and  treasure.  Neither  had  she  ever  written 
to  her  father ;  for  when  he  was  away  from  home, 
her  mother  had  always  written  to  him  long,  closely 
written  sheets,  too  full  of  her  love  for  him,  and  of 
praises  of  Pen,  and  of  all  the  comfort  she  and  little 
Tre  were  to  her  in  his  absence  for  the  girl  ever  to 
get  a  sight  of  them.  So  she  had  no  models  to  go 
by;  and  when  she  sat  down  with  her  heart  full 
of  all  she  had  to  tell  Sandy,  she  found  that  she 


128  PEN. 

had  not  the  pen  of  a  ready  writer,  and  that  the 
thoughts  froze  on  her  pen  into  dull,  little,  meaning- 
less phrases,  about  father  being  well,  and  Tre  well, 
and  that  she  hoped  Sandy  was  well,  and  was  enjoy- 
ing himself,  and  was  coming  home  soon.  She  did 
not  even  quite  know  how  to  begin  her  letter ;  she 
had  always  called  him.  Sandy,  but  somehow  it 
looked  rude  and  familiar  in  black  and  white,  and 
she  tried  once  on  the  blotting-paper  how  "  Dear 
Mr.  Maclaren "  would  look,  and  found  it  was 
impossible. 

The  ending  was  simplified  by  Tre,  who  desired 
to  send  kisses  to  Sandy,  as  'Liza  had  shown  her 
the  best  way  to  transmit  those  articles  by  post  in 
the  form  of  a  flight  of  little  crosses,  which  filled  up 
all  the  space  remaining. 

After  these  two  letters  he  did  not  hear  again, 
though  he  wrote  two  or  three  times ;  but  letter- 
writing  did  not  come  easy  to  Sandy  either,  and 
day  after  day  he  hoped  to  be  able  to  write  and  fix 
the  day  for  his  return ;  and  sometimes  he  thought 
that  his  return  was  so  near  that  it  was  hardly 
worth  writing,  and  that  he  might  say  all  he  had  to 
say  much  more  comfortably  in  the  armchair  at 
Purton  Street,  with  Tre  on  his  knee  and  Pen  on 
the  little  stool  looking  up  at  him. 

Two   months   actually  slipped   away   in   young 


COMING   BACK.  1 29 

Tom's  illness  and  relapses ;  and  when  at  last  he 
was  really  better  and  was  established  in  an  hotel  at 
Grindehvald,  palpably  getting  stronger  every  day, 
and  being  made  a  great  pet  of  by  the  energetic 
young  ladies  with  nailed  boots  and  alpenstocks, 
who  abounded,  so  that  Sandy  felt  he  could  well  be 
dispensed  with ;  and  when  even  Sandy's  portman- 
teau was  packed,  and  his  place  engaged  on  the 
omnibus  to  take  him  down  to  Interlaken,  en  route 
for  Purton  Street,  a  fresh  circumstance  quietly 
rolled  in  the  way,  and  postponed  his  return  for 
another  two  months. 

This  circumstance  was  none  other  than  Sandy's 
own  illness  —  Sandy  who  had  never  known  a  day's 
illness  in  his  life,  except  those  childish  maladies 
in  which,  as  I  have  said,  he  and  Tom  always  in- 
dulged at  the  most  inopportune  moments  —  he, 
who  had  never  had  to  consider  fatigue,  or  cold,  or 
east  wind,  or  wet  clothes  or  unaired  sheets  in  any 
connection  with  himself  or  his  health,  now  was 
seized  with  a  shivering  fit,  as  he  and  Tom  sat 
smoking  in  the  veranda  of  the  hotel;  and,  after 
vainly  trying  to  prevent  his  teeth  involuntarily  per- 
forming the  part  of  castanets,  was  obliged  to  con- 
fess that  he  was  seedy,  and  that  he  had  better  turn 
in  early. 

And  next  morning,  after  a  night  that  seemed  as 
9 


1 30  PEN. 

long  as  the  whole  of  his  life  put  together,  and  after 
superhuman  efforts  to  get  into  his  clothes,  like  a 
reasonable  human  being,  and  walk  across  the  room, 
the  floor  of  which  seemed  rising  and  falling  before 
his  bewildered  eyes,  he  was  obliged  to  confess  that 
he  did  not  feel  much  like  travelling  twenty-four 
hours  on  end,  and  that  he  must  give  it  up  for  a 
day  or  two. 

Which  day  or  two  spread  out  into  a  month  or 
two,  so  that  it  was  nearly  the  end  of  August  when 
he  found  himself  turning  the  well-known  corner 
into  Purton  Street,  round  which  he  had  run  in  his 
pretended  hurry  to  catch  the  train  four  months 
before  in  April. 

He  was  rather  a  gaunter  edition  of  the  Sandy 
who  went  away,  and  his  clothes,  which  were  never 
of  very  fashionable  cut,  looked  looser  and  less  well- 
fitting  even  than  usual.  He  had  found  it  difficult 
even  now  to  get  away  from  the  two  Toms  who 
had  taken  to  tyrannize  over  him  during  his  illness, 
and  to  treat  him,  as  he  protested,  as  if  he  were 
unable  to  take  care  of  himself,  and  were  either  an 
inexperienced  child  or  a  decrepit,  doddering,  old 
idiot.  So  young  Tom  was  hardly  to  be  persuaded 
to  let  this  helpless  individual  go  on  to  London 
while  he  and  his  father  remained  at  Folkestone. 
Where  was  the  hurry?  He  would  be  roasted 


COMING   BACK.  131 

alive  !     There  would  not  be  a  soul  there  at  that 
time  of  year. 

Young  Tom  talked  as  people  so  often  talk,  as  if 
London  in  August  were  a  howling  wilderness  with 
grass  growing  in  the  streets  and  wild  beasts  roam- 
ing about  the  deserted  thoroughfares.  Perhaps  he 
had  more  excuse  for  talking  in  this  way  than  most 
of  us  have,  having  only  lately  come  within  a 
thousand  miles  of  the  great  metropolis,  and  only 
judging  from  hearsay ;  but  it  is  very  curious  how 
we,  who  ought  to  and  do  know  better,  persistently 
carry  on  this  fable.  It  is  true  perhaps  that  in  the 
park,  or  in  the  more  fashionable  streets  and  squares, 
and  at  the  clubs,  a  difference  may  be  seen ;  a  good 
deal  of  cleaning  and  painting  is  going  on,  the 
shutters  are  closed  in  many  of  the  houses,  and 
shady  women  in  bonnets  have  taken  the  place  of 
the  gorgeous  flunkeys.  But  outside  these  fashion- 
able regions  (and  what  a  small  part  of  London 
they  form  after  all !)  it  would  be  difficult  to  tell  it 
was  not  the  season  still,  from  the  unabated  throng 
of  vehicles,  with  a  fair  sprinkling  of  carriages  and 
pairs,  from  the  shops,  where  business  seems  going 
on  as  merrily  as  ever,  with  the  usual  crowd  of  ladies 
at  the  counters,  and  the  weary  shopmen  seeking  to 
satisfy  their  never-ending  wants.  It  is  as  difficult 
for  nervous,  old  ladies  to  cross  at  Regent  Circus ; 


132  PEN. 

there  is  quite  as  much  employment  for  the  police- 
man in  rescuing  them  from  the  horses'  feet ;  and 
as  you  pass  eastward  the  difference  is  even  less 
apparent ;  the  tide  of  business  seems  to  rise  as  high 
in  the  city,  there  is  as  much  noise  and  bustle  and 
rush ;  there  are  as  many  anxious,  engrossed  faces 
hurrying  to  and  fro,  as  though  there  were  no  such 
things  as  broad  harvest  fields  and  breezy  moors,  or 
stretches  of  sunny  sea,  or  leafy  woods  full  of  quiet 
whispers  and  soft  shade.  Still  eastward,  or  rather 
northeast,  in  Dalston,  times  and  seasons  make 
little  difference  in  the  monotonous  dulness,  though 
perhaps  August  may  be  a  trifle  more  so ;  there  is  a 
parched,  dusty  look  about  everything,  bits  of  paper 
appear  on  the  scene  and  accumulate  in  corners, 
and,  when  a  sultry,  little  breeze  springs  up,  whirl 
and  frisk  about  the  pavements ;  children  swarm  in 
all  the  side  streets,  showing,  I  suppose,  that  it  is 
the  Board  School  holidays ;  and  in  less  respectable 
streets  than  Purton  Street,  swings  are  established 
across  door-steps,  and  hop-scotch  diagrams  are 
chalked  out  on  the  pavement.  But  Purton  Street 
being  more  dignified  had  not  descended  to  such 
practices ;  and  when  Sandy  turned  the  corner  that 
August  evening,  there  was  no  one  to  be  seen  in  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  shabby,  little  street  but 
a  mangy- looking  cat,  slinking  along  with  that 


COMING  BACK.  133 

abject  want  of  dignity  and  self-respect  that  only 
cats  can  sink  to.  Purton  Street  had  never  struck 
Sandy  before  as  being  so  dreary  and  mean.  Per- 
haps it  was  in  contrast  with  the  Swiss  mountains, 
the  fair,  white  Jungfrau  flushed,  as  he  had  seen  it 
only  three  evenings  before,  with  the  sunset,  and 
the  great  Eiger,  with  its  noble  outline.  But  after 
all  a  palace  might  have  looked  mean  after  such 
grand  masterpieces  of  the  great  Builder,  and  how 
much  more  little,  dingy  Purton  Street,  with  its 
sooty  bricks,  from  which  the  mortar  was  crumbling 
away,  and  its  grimy  paint  and  blistered  doors. 

Sandy  had  gone  first  of  all  to  his  own  lodgings, 
and  had  found  changes  there  to  account  for  his 
having  had  no  letters  forwarded  to  him  for  some 
time  past.  Mrs.  Jones  had  fallen  ill,  and  a  niece 
had  come  to  nurse  her,  who,  ultimately,  had  been 
left  in  charge,  while  Mrs.  Jones  had  gone  off  for 
change  of  air  to  a  brother  "  as  lives  over  Southend 
way  and  keeps  a  teagarding  with  little  harbors  and 
a  founting  as  plays  beautiful,  and  tea  and  shrimps 
at  ninepence  a  'ead." 

The  niece  was  garrulous,  and  poured  forth  a 
flood  of  information  as  Sandy  stood  in  the  little 
sitting-room,  turning  over  the  letters  on  the  mantel- 
piece, "which  Mrs.  Jones  lef  word  was  not  to  be 
meddled  with  were  it  ever  so,  knowing  as  'ow  you 


134  PEN. 

was  that  particler."  Bills  and  circulars  most  of 
them,  but  two  of  them  bore  Pen's  writing,  and  one 
of  these  bore  a  post-mark  of  not  many  days  before. 
Well,  at  any  rate  she  was  living,  for  a  dread  had 
come  into  Sandy's  heart  that  the  long  silence  might 
mean  the  great  silence ;  and  if  he,  strong  man  as 
he  was,  had  been  ill  and  near  death,  why  not  that 
little,  delicate,  fragile  girl? 

He  did  not  open  the  letters,  but  put  them  in  his 
pocket,  he  could  not  read  them  while  that  woman 
was  clacking  away  in  his  ears ;  and  besides,  he 
.could  reach  Purton  Street  in  two  minutes  and  hear 
and  see  for  himself  a  million  times  better  than  the 
most  elaborate  and  exhaustive  letter  could  possibly 
tell  him.  So  he  interrupted  the  niece  in  a  pro- 
longed explanation  of  how  the  lamp-glass  got 
broken,  and  went  off  to  No.  37. 

As  he  approached  it,  he  heard  the  somewhat 
tremulous  strains  of  a  concertina  ascending  from 
the  open  kitchen  window,  and  stopped  to  listen, 
with  a  smile,  wondering  if  'Liza  had  added  this  to 
her  other  accomplishments  during  his  absence. 

"  Hold  the  Fort "  was  the  tune,  played  in  rather 
a  jerky  and  laborious  manner,  and,  at  the  end, 
Sandy  heard  Tre's  voice  —  and  it  sounded  very 
small  and  clear  and  soft  —  say,  "  Mr.  Mangles,  when 
I  'm  better  will  you  teach  me  to  play  a  tune  ?  Pen 


COMING   BACK.  135 

says  little  girls  always  learn  to  play  the  piano. 
Mother  did  when  she  was  a  much  littler  girl  than 
me.  I  'd  like  to  learn  to  play  just  one  little  tune 
because,  don't  you  know?  I  think  in  heaven  peo- 
ples have  to  play  a  good  deal,  and  it  would  be 
so  bad  not  to  be  able  to  play  one  bit.  I  asked 
Pen  how  it  would  be  for  poor,  little  girls  that 
could  n't  play  and  had  never  been  taught,  but  she 
did  n't  seem  to  know  about  it ;  and  I  've  been 
thinking,  Mr.  Mangles,  that  they  could  n't  be  angry, 
could  they?  if  it  wasn't  no  fault  of  the  little  girls, 
and  that  perhaps  there  might  be  a  sort  of  a  bar- 
rel organ  —  no,  not  the  one  with  the  monkey,"  a 
shade  of  regret  came  into  the  voice  here,  "just 
to  begin  with,  and  the  angels  would  teach  them 
by  and  by." 

And  a  gruff  voice  answered,  "  Ay,  there  's  no 
knowing  how  things  '11  turn  out,  but  I  '11  learn  you, 
my  pretty,  as  many  toons  as  yer  like  if  I  'm  here 
long  enough,  bless  yer  !  " 

Sandy's  smile  at  the  thought  of  'Liza's  new  ac- 
complishment had  died  away  with  Tre's  first  words. 
"Mr.  Mangles,  when  I'm  better — "  Who  was 
this  Mr.  Mangles  who  was  established  in  the  front 
kitchen?  some  friend  of  'Liza's? 

Sandy's  exhortations  to  that  young  woman  before 
he  went  away  must  have  had  very  little  effect  if  a 


136  PEN. 

male  friend  or  relative  could  be  making  himself  at 
home  in  this  way  !  "When  I  'm  better —  "  there 
was  no  doubt  the  voice  was  weak  and  languid  that 
spoke  the  words,  very  different  from  the  voice  that 
had  chattered  and  laughed  on  the  beach  at  Monk- 
ton,  as  they  jumped  from  rock  to  rock ;  and  the 
words  gave  the  impression  of  heaven  and  the  angels 
seeming  very  near  to  the  child,  without  the  bright 
interval  of  happy  life  that  used  in  former  talks 
with  Sandy  to  lie  between  her  and  that  other 
world. 

A  step  nearer  brought  him  in  view  of  the 
kitchen  window,  though  the  two  within  were  too 
much  occupied  to  notice  him.  The  areas  in  Pur- 
ton  Street  are  narrow,  and  not  furnished  with  area 
steps  or  even  a  ladder,  and  there  are  bars  in  front 
of  the  kitchen  windows  which  seem  scarcely  neces- 
sary when  there  can  be  but  little  temptation  to 
burglars  in  such  houses.  The  window  was  pushed 
up  as  high  as  possible,  and  close  to  it  lay  Tre  on 
an  improvised  sofa  of  chairs  and  pillows,  a  very 
shadow  of  the  Tre  Sandy  had  left  sobbing  on  the 
hearth-rug.  There  was  a  pot  of  rather  spidery 
musk  on  the  window-sill  outside,  and,  as  Tre 
talked,  one  little  hand  was  playing  with  the  leaves, 
sending  up  to  Sandy's  nostrils  the  sweet,  spicy 
fragrance  which  in  after  years^  always  recalled  to 


COMING  BACK.  137 

his  mind  that  coming  back,  and  the  little,  wasted 
hand  playing  with  the  yellowish  leaves,  and  the 
outline  of  the  wan,  white  cheek  turned  on  the 
pillow  towards  the  old  man,  who  sat  beside  her, 
without  his  coat,  and  with  the  concertina  rest- 
ing on  his  knees  while  he  took  a  prolonged  pinch 
of  snuff,  an  operation  watched  by  Tre  with  rapt 
attention. 

Not  an  attractive- looking  old  man  this  sup- 
posed relation  of  'Liza's ;  bald,  with  gray  eye- 
brows nearly  meeting  and  tufted,  so  that  Tre  used 
to  wonder  the  ends  did  not  get  into  the  small 
gray  eyes  that  looked  out  from  under  the  pent- 
house. 

There  were  lines  all  over  the  face,  accentuated 
by  the  snuff  which  lodged  in  all  convenient  nooks 
and  crannies.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  snuffy 
gray  whisker  and  growth  under  the  chin,  and  a 
tuft  in  the  middle  of  the  chin,  which  seemed  to  be 
a  particularly  convenient  resting-place  for  snuff, 
and  which  wagged  up  and  down  when  he  played 
the  concertina,  and,  in  difficult  passages,  quivered 
in  a  manner  interesting  to  behold.  Of  course 
these  details  of  his  appearance  were  not  taken 
in  at  the  first  glance  by  Sandy,  if  indeed  he  ever 
quite  grasped  them ;  but  to  Tre  there  was  a  sort 
of  fascination  in  the  lined  old  face,  and  she  could 


138  PEN. 

almost  have  drawn  a  map  of  the  wrinkles  and 
crow's-feet  which  formed  isthmuses  and  promon- 
tories and  capes  and  headlands  over  it. 

Sandy  might  have  stood  longer  looking  down 
at  the  kitchen  window,  if  a  step  coming  along  the 
street  had  not  roused  him,  and,  looking  round,  he 
saw  that  it  was  Pen.  The  weary,  languid  step 
along  the  baking  pavement  told  him  a  good  deal ; 
the  shabby,  dusty,  black  frock,  and  the  brown, 
rusty  crape  on  her  hat,  and  the  small,  gloveless 
hands  were  very  eloquent ;  but  the  little  face  with 
its  great,  shining  eyes  surrounded  by  dark  circles, 
and  the  mouth  drawn  into  such  lines  of  patience, 
the  pathetic  mixture  of  childishness  and  most 
unchildlike  care  written  on  it,  were  more  than 
Sandy  could  bear  to  look  at ;  and  a  few  strides 
took  him  to  her,  and  her  hands  were  grasped  in 
his,  and  he  was  asking,  in  rather  a  husky  voice, 
what  the  meaning  of  it  all  was,  and  what  was  the 
matter. 

The  color  had  rushed  into  Pen's  face  and  a 
momentary  brightness  into  her  eyes,  but  she  shook 
so  that  she  had  to  cling  to  Sandy  for  a  minute 
before  she  could  go  on,  and  the  surprise  seemed 
to  have  taken  away  her  breath,  for  she  gasped  out 
little,  short,  breathless  sentences  in  answer  to  his 
questions. 


COMING  BACK.  139 

"Tre  has' been  ill—  And  you  were  away  — 
And  'Liza  has  gone-" 

"  And  who  is  Mr.  Mangles?  " 

A  gasp.  "Well— you  see  — the  rent  was  not 
paid  —  and  —  " 

"  Oh  !  "  said  Sandy. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

WHAT  'S   TO    BE   DONE  ? 

BY  and  by,  when  Sandy  was  established  in  that 
old  armchair  in  the  parlor  in  which  my 
story  began,  with  Tre  in  his  arms,  such  a  very  light 
Tre,  not  half  the  weight  of  the  laughing  thing  that 
had  clung  round  his  neck  on  the  breakwater  at 
Monkton,  he  heard  more  about  it,  principally  from 
Tre,  for  Pen,  though  she  was  sitting  in  the  old 
place  for  confidences,  the  little  stool  by  his  side, 
was  not  so  communicative  as  of  old,  and  every 
now  and  then  would  seem  to  draw  in  and  stop  the 
words  that  were  pressing  to  be  spoken. 

Sandy  fancied  sometimes  too  that  she  was  lis- 
tening for  some  sound  outside,  for  she  would  break 
off  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence  and  start  and  shiver 
if  a  step  stopped  on  the  pavement,  but  perhaps  it 
was  only  a  symptom  of  the  nervous,  overstrained 
condition  in  which  she  evidently  was. 
"  What  has  been  the  matter  with  Tre?  " 
"  She  was  sick,  and  always  tired,  and  her  head 
ached,  and  she  used  to  talk  all  night,  and  she  could 
not  eat  anything." 


WHAT'S  TO  BE  DONE?  141 

"  Did  you  have  the  doctor?  " 

"  No  —  "  A  gasp  stopped  Pen's  voice,  but  Tre 
took  up  the  story,  with  a  certain  wise,  reasonable 
tone  that  made  Sandy's  heart  ache.  "  We  could  n't 
have  Dr.  Bell,  for  he  had  n't  been  paid  for  coming 
to  see  mother,  and  we  did  n't  like  to  send  for  any 
one  else ;  but  Pen  asked  the  chemist  what  he 
thought  was  the  matter  with  me,  and  'Liza  says 
he  's  better  than  any  of  the  doctors,  and  knows  a 
lot  more,  and  cured  her  toothache  as  easy  as  any- 
thing, when  she  'd  been  to  ever  so  many  doctors 
and  they  could  n't  do  nothing." 

"What  did  he  say?" 

"He  said,"  Pen  resumed,  "that  it  was  most 
likely  low  fever,  for  there  was  a  lot  about,  and 
that  we  'd  better  ask  a  doctor,  but  he  made  up  a 
draught." 

"And,"  interrupted  Tre,  "he  sent  me  a  rose 
that  had  come  up  from  the  real  country,  because 
he  remembered  me  coming  to  the  shop  when 
mother  was  ill.  It  was  such  a  beauty,  and  I  've  got 
the  leaves  still  and  they  smell  nice ;  and  when  I  'm 
better  I  shall  go  and  thank  him,  and  say  it  made 
me  sleep  at  night  and  not  think  of  tigers  so  much." 

"  But  why  did  'Liza  go  away?  " 

"She  wanted  some  money  at  Whitsuntide  and 
there  was  none." 


142  PEN. 

"  But,"  pursued  Tre,  "  it  was  n't  that,  though  she 
said  it  was  hard  not  to  be  able  to  have  a  new  bon- 
net and  go  out  in  a  van  like  every  one  else ;  but 
she  asked  father  one  evening  when  he  was  funny, 
and  he  was  angry,  and  took  hold  of  her  and  put 
her  right  outside  the~street  door,  and  she  'd  only 
her  cap  on,  and  it  was  raining,  and  he  would  n't 
let  her  in,  and  she  had  to  run  round  to  the  milk- 
shop  and  wait  till  father  had  gone  to  sleep,  and 
then  we  let  her  in  again,  but  she  just  packed  up 
her  box  and  went  away;  she  said  she  wouldn't 
sleep  another  night  in  the  house.  Father  was 
quite  surprised  to  find  she  was  gone  next  morning, 
when  me  and  Pen  could  n't  make  the  kitchen  fire 
light  anyhow." 

Pen  had  got  up  from  her  seat  and  gone  to  the 
window,  and  stood  with  her  back  turned;  and 
Sandy  could  see  that  she  had  flushed  up  to  her 
ears,  all  over  the  slight  throat  that  showed  so  fair 
above  the  shabby,  black  frock,  and  that  Tre's 
words,  every  now  and  then,  produced  a  quiver  in 
her  as  of  actual  physical  pain. 

As  for  Sandy  he  did  not  notice  much  what  the 
child  was  saying;  one  word  had  caught  his  no- 
tice and  he  stopped  at  that,  turning  it  over  in 
his  mind,  —  "  funny  "  ?  —  "  one  evening  when  he 
was  funny  "  ?  —  What  was  the  meaning  of  that? 


WHAT'S  TO  BE  DONE?  143 

"  How  long  is  it  since  'Liza  left?  " 

"  Oh  !  a  long  time  ago,  before  I  was  ill,  and 
then  we  had  Bridget,  and  then  Mrs.  Jobson,  just 
for  the  day  you  know,  and  she  always  wore  a  bon- 
net, and  then  we  went  on  a  bit  without  any  one, 
and  then  there  was  Alberta,  but  she  went  away  the 
day  Mr.  Mangles  came ;  she  called  him  such  a 
funny  name,  what  was  it,  Pen?  —  and  said  she 
would  not  demean  herself  to  wait  on  such  as  him. 
But  he  's  such  a  nice,  old  man,  Sandy,  I  don't  see 
why  she  should  have  disliked  him  so,  and  he 
does  n't  want  any  one  to  wait  on  him,  but  he  does 
lots  of  things  for  us,  and  lights  the  kitchen  fire, 
and  cooks  and  carries  up  the  water,  and  plays  the 
concertina  beautiful." 

Just  then,  as  if  in  illustration  of  the  usefulness 
of  Mr.  Mangles,  a  knock  came  at  the  door,  and  a 
tea-tray  made  its  appearance  with  a  plate  of  water- 
cresses  of  strong,  vigorous  growth,  arranged  round 
a  salt-cellar  in  the  approved  style.  Only  the  tea- 
tray,  and  a  pair  of  rather  snuffy  hands  holding  it, 
could  be  seen,  as  Mr.  Mangles  was  bashful  at  ap- 
pearing before  company ;  but  Pen  went  to  receive 
it  from  him  and  conveyed  it  into  the  room ;  and 
though  Tre  called  to  him  to  come  in,  he  could  not 
be  prevailed  upon  to  do  so,  but  retired  down  the 
kitchen  stairs  with  some  indistinct  remarks  about 


144 

"  folks  wanting  their  teas,"  and  "  them  creases 
being  pretty  middlin'."  . 

"  It  's  very  kind  of  him,"  Pen  said  with  a  tremu- 
lous voice,  "  he  's  not  obliged  to  do  it,  and  Alberta 
says  these  men  sometimes  are  so  horrid.  She  said 
they  always  were ;  but  he  has  been  so  good  to  us. 
I  think  he  was  sorry  for  Tre,  you  know,  and  he 
has  some  grandchildren  he 's  fond  of,  and  he  says 
Tre  's  just  like  one  of  them.  But  I  don't  think 
she  is,  for  he  came  one  day  and  he  was  such  an 
ugly,  little  boy,  with  one  eye  larger  than  the  other, 
and  a  dirty  nose." 

"  He  's  a  very  good,  little  boy,"  Tre  interrupted 
reprovingly,  being  superior  herself  to  pleasing  ap- 
pearances and  such  superficial  attractions,  "  and 
very  clever,  and  knows  a  lot  more  than  I  do ;  he 
goes  to  a  Board  School,  and  to  the  Wesleyan 
School,  on  Sundays,  and  he  belongs  to  the  Band  of 
Hope,  and  wears  a  blue  ribbon  and  a  medal." 

Tre  was  evidently  deeply  versed  in  the  history 
of  the  Mangles  family,  and  was  prepared  to  retail 
it  for  the  edification  of  Sandy,  never  doubting  for 
a  moment  that  it  would  be  as  interesting  to  him  as 
it  had  been  to  her ;  for  she  had  beguiled  several 
long  sultry  afternoons,  or  sleepless  evenings,  with 
listening  to  slow  stories  of  Juliarann,  as  lived  over 
Radcliffe  way,  and  worked  in  the  jam  factory, 


WHAT'S  TO  BE  DONE?  145 

which  seemed  to  Tre,  when  she  was  not  feeling 
sick,  a  pleasant  walk  of  life ;  and  of  the  young 
man  she  was  going  to  marry,  who  was  a  chucker- 
out  at  a  public-house,  and  broke  a  man's  nose  once 
with  a  knuckle-duster. 

There  was  a  great  deal  that  occurred  in  the 
course  of  the  narrative  that  Tre  did  not  the  least 
understand,  but  this  in  no  way  diminished  the 
interest  but  rather  added  to  it ;  which  is  a  fact,  I 
always  think,  that  should  be  more  borne  in  mind 
by  the  writers  of  literature  for  the  young,  who  take 
such  elaborate  pains  to  simplify  and  explain  every- 
thing, and  leave  nothing  to  be  wondered  over,  and 
no  possible  wrong  conclusions  to  be  arrived  at  — 
when,  after  all,  the  wondering  and  the  wrong  con- 
clusions are  half  the  fun  of  it. 

I  am  afraid  none  of  the  party  did  much  justice 
to  Mr.  Mangles'  "  creases."  Tre  had  no  appetite, 
and  was  too  excited  and  talked  too  much ;  and 
Pen  was  nervous  and  distracted,  sometimes  acutely 
conscious  of  what  the  child  was  saying,  sometimes 
evidently  with  her  attention  wandering,  and  with 
that  air  of  listening  for  some  other  sound  that 
Sandy  had  noticed  before ;  while  as  for  Sandy,  it 
was  not  dark  suspicions  of  snuff  about  the  water- 
cresses  that  kept  him  from  partaking  more  freely 
—  he  would  have  swallowed  it  by  the  half- ounce  if 


146  PEN. 

scattered  by  the  hand  of  any  one  who  had  been 
good  to  the  children  —  but  his  thoughts  were  also 
distracted  by  little  Tre's  talk  and  by  Pen's  nervous 
silence,  and  by  wondering  over  those  words  "  when 
he  was  funny."  Except  for  that  there  had  been 
no  mention  of  Louis  Brand  till  tea  was  nearly 
over,  when  Sandy  asked  carelessly,  "  Where  's  the 
signor?  "  taking  care  not  to  look  at  Pen  as  he  said 
it,  but  conscious  all  the  same  of  a  quiver  and  a 
sudden  necessity  for  clearing  the  tea-things  away. 

"  He  's  not  come  in  yet,"  Tre  said,  sinking  her 
voice  almost  to  a  whisper,  as  if  it  were  a  subject 
not  to  be  discussed  openly,  "  he  don't  come  in 
sometimes  till  long,  long,  long  after  I  'm  in  bed ; 
and  once  it  was  quite  light  when  Pen  came  up  to 
bed.  It  seemed  so  funny  undressing  by  daylight, 
but  we  could  n't  go  to  sleep ;  Pen's  eyes  were  so 
wide  open,  were  n't  they,  Pen  ?  as  if  they  never 
would  close  up  any  more,  so  we  did  n't  try,  but 
talked  about  mother,  and  Pen  said  that  was  better 
than  going  to  sleep." 

The  tea-things  were  all  collected,  by  this  time, 
on  the  tray,  with  more  clatter  and  noise  than  Pen's 
actions  were  wont  to  occasion,  and  she  lifted  the 
tray  to  carry  it  out.  Sandy  half  got  up  to  set  Tre 
down  and  take  the  tray,  which  looked  too  heavy 
for  the  slight  arms,  but  he  wanted  a  word  with  Tre 


WHAT'S  TO  BE  DONE?  147 

alone,  and  this  seemed  his  only  chance,  so  he  let 
Pen  carry  the  tray  out,  and  then  quickly  asked  the 
question  he  was  longing  to  have  answered,  but 
which  he  could  not  ask  before  Pen,  as  he  intui- 
tively felt  that  it  would  touch  her  on  the  very 
quick. 

"What  did  you  mean  by  father  being  funny? " 

The  child  was  silent,  drawing  her  brows  together 
with  a  puzzled,  thoughtful  look. 

"  I  don't  quite  know ;  Pen  won't  let  me  talk  of 
it.  But  I  Ve  been  thinking,  Sandy,  that  perhaps 
it 's  the  low  fever  father  has,  for  Mr.  Timmens  said 
it  was  so  much  about.  He  's  just  like  me  some- 
times in  the  morning,  and  his  head  is  awful  bad, 
and  he  can't  eat  nothing,  and  he  don't  like  the 
leastest  noise.  And  Pen  says  /  was  sometimes 
funny  at  night,  and  talked  nonsense,  and  did  not 
know  what  I  said,  and  sometimes  I  cried,  and 
sometimes  I  laughed  and  sang,  but  I  did  not  re- 
member anything  about  it  when  I  woke  in  the 
morning,  you  know,  Sandy,  was  n't  it  funny  ?  And 
I  Ve  been  thinking  father  must  have  caught  the 
low  fever  too,  don't  you  think  so,  Sandy?" 

That  was  all  there  was  time  for  then,  happily 
for  Sandy's  sincerity,  as  Pen  came  back  and  Tre 
seemed  to  understand  that,  in  her  presence,  the 
discussion  of  father's  ailments  had  better  drop. 


148  PEN. 

Sandy  had  a  lot  to  tell  them  on  his  side  of  his 
travels  and  adventures,  and  of  young  Tom  and 
their  illness,  and  of  the  lovely  Italian  lakes  and 
the  beautiful  Swiss  mountains ;  he  was  quite  sur- 
prised to  find  how  much  of  the  beauty  he  had 
taken  in  and  appreciated,  while  at  the  time  it  had 
hardly  seemed  to  give  him  any  pleasure  at  all. 
But  it  all  seemed  to  squeeze  out  of  him  now  that 
Tre's  arm  was  round  his  neck  and  Pen's  big  eyes 
were  raised  to  his ;  while  all  the  time  he  talked, 
his  mind  only  half  followed  his  words,  while  the 
other  half  was  pondering  and  trying  to  devise  some 
scheme  for  setting  matters  right,  as  there  was  no 
doubt  they  were  wofully  wrong. 

It  was  late  when  tea  was  ended,  and  they  sat 
on  in  the  dusk  by  the  window,  while  Sandy  talked 
and  Tre  grew  silent,  and  her  head  pressed  on 
Sandy's  shoulder,  and  the  face  he  looked  down 
on  in  the  twilight  was  very  white  and  tired -looking. 
Once  he  proposed  to  light  the  gas,  but  Pen  hastily 
discouraged  the  idea,  and  Sandy  guessed  that  it 
had  been  cut  off  and  said  no  more ;  but  it  puzzled 
him  to  think  why  Pen  was  evidently  so  anxious 
that  he  should  not  stop  when  she  took  Tre  up  to 
bed.  She  was  plainly  in  a  fever  of  anxiety  to  get 
rid  of  him,  and  yet  she  had  been  most  unfeignedly 
pleased  to  see  him,  and  more  than  once  she  had 


WHAT'S  TO  BE  DONE?  149 

said  it  was  all  right  now  he  had  come  back,  and 
that  she  had  so  much  to  tell  him.  But  now  she 
begged  him  with  tears  in  her  eyes  not  to  wait  till 
she  came  down  again,  and,  when  he  said  that  he 
wanted  to  see  the  signer,  she  assured  him  that 
it  might  be  very  late  before  her  father  returned, 
and  that  next  morning  would  be  much  better 
altogether. 

She  was  so  troubled  and  anxious  about  it  that 
at  last  Sandy  reluctantly  agreed  to  go  after  he 
had  had  a  word  or  two  with  Mr.  Mangles,  and  he 
went  down  into  the  kitchen  for  that  purpose  after 
carrying  Tre  up  to  her  room. 

Mr.  Mangles  was  smoking  very  strong  tobacco, 
and  the  kitchen,  which  had  been  sacred  to  'Liza 
in  old  times,  was  now  reeking  with  smoke,  enough 
to  make  even  Sandy's  well-seasoned  eyes  smart  and 
prick.  In  answer  to  Sandy's  questions  he  said, 
"Yes,  I  were  put  in  a  week  to-day.  Sprigg  and 
Bateman  's  my  governors,  and  Mason 's  the  landlord, 
lives  round  the  corner  in  Beeston  Street.  Oh,  it 
ain't  for  much,  bless  yer !  and  things  could  be 
arranged  in  a  jiffy.  Mason  ain't  the  man  to  be 
'ard  on  a  gent  as  is  down  on  his  luck ;  but  he  's 
a  bit  pinched  himself  is  Mason,  'ouses  don't  pay 
nohow,  what  with  run-away  tenants  and  repairs  con- 
stant, and  all  this  'ullabaloo  about  drainage  and 


150  PEN. 

water  as  parties  makes  nowadays,  so  he  's  forced 
to  look  after  his  rent  pretty  sharp,  he  is,  and  small 
blame  to  him.  But  lookey  here,  if  you  're  a  friend 
of  the  guvnor  here,  you  just  give  him  a  tip  to  mind 
what  he  's  up  to  with  them  two ; "  and  Mr.  Mangles 
gave  a  significant  jerk  with  the  stem  of  his  pipe 
over  his  shoulder,  in  the  direction  of  the  staircase, 
to  indicate  Pen  and  Tre.  "  Ain't  he  got  any  aunts 
or  mothers  or  such  like  belonging  to  him  as  could 
take  'em  clear  away  out  of  this  ?  it 's  just  killing  of 
'em  !  They  ain't  the  sort  to  rough  it ;  there 's  chil- 
dren as  takes  to  debt  and  botheration  like  ducks 
to  the  water  and  thrives  on  it,  and  there 's  others 
as  it  just  kills,  and  that 's  them,"  said  Mr.  Mangles 
oracularly,  resuming  his  pipe  and  drawing  at  it 
fiercely,  till  his  nostrils  grew  round  and  black  and 
distended.  "  See  the  guvnor  first  thing  to-morrow? 
And  get  me  out?  All  right,  sir,  very  good, 
nothin'  'd  please  me  better ;  but  —  I'm  dashed  if  I 
knows  'ow  they  '11  get  along  without  nobody  to  do 
nothing,  them  two  little  gals  as  is  ladies  every  inch 
of  'em,  and  did  oughter  have  servants  awaitin'  on 
'em  'and  and  foot.  Why,  bless  yer !  I  've  seen 
duchesses'  and  countesses'  children  as  could  n't 
'old  a  candle  to  'em,"  ended  Mr.  Mangles,  warm- 
ing into  eloquence,  and  having  no  doubt  had  vast 
experience  among  the  children  of  the  aristocracy 


WHAT'S  TO  BE  DONE?  151 

—  perhaps  when  he  was  in  possession  at  the  ducal 
residences. 

This  was  a  difficulty  which  Sandy  had  not  cal- 
culated upon,  having  been  used  to  regard  a  man  in 
possession  as  an  unmixed  evil,  and  not  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  a  maid-of-all-work,  but  it  was  arranged 
by  Mr.  Mangles  remembering  "  a  sister-law "  of 
his  daughter's,  "  as  is  a  widder  woman  and  could 
come  in  and  do  for  them,  as  'as  a  kind  'art  and 
'ave  brought  up  a  fambly  of  her  own." 

That  being  settled,  Sandy  took  his  leave,  thank- 
ing the  old  man  for  his  kindness,  but  rendered  still 
more  uneasy  in  his  mind  by  Mr.  Mangles'  knowing 
wink  and  meaning  gesture  when  Louis  Brand's 
name  was  mentioned,  and  his  evident  unconcealed 
opinion  that  their  father's  house  was  no  place  for 
the  little  girls. 

He  was  conscious  too  that  Pen  was  listening  for 
his  departure  on  the  landing  above,  having  come 
more  than  once,  in  her  restless  impatience,  to  the 
top  of  the  kitchen  stairs  while  he  was  talking  to 
Mr.  Mangles ;  and  he  almost  fancied  he  heard  a 
sigh  of  relief  as  he  opened  the  street  door  and 
passed  out  into  the  sultry  August  night  in  Purton 
Street. 

He  had  accommodated  ^himself  to  Pen's  wishes 
so  far  as  leaving  No.  37  was  concerned,  but  he  had 


I$2  PEN. 

not  undertaken  to  go  home  and  to  bed,  nor  even 
to  leave  Purton  Street,  nor  to  go  out  of  sight  of  the 
door ;  and  he  had  firmly  made  up  his  mind  not 
to  do  so  till  he  had  seen  Louis  Brand  go  in,  and 
satisfied  himself  as  to  whether  the  fears  and  sus- 
picions about  him,  that  Tre's  words  and  Pen's  looks 
and  Mr.  Mangles'  hints  had  aroused,  were  founded 
on  fact. 

The  clock  of  a  neighboring  church  struck  nine 
soon  after  he  came  out,  and  he  heard  it  strike  ten 
and  eleven  while  he  paced  up  and  down  the  streets 
in  the  immediate  neighborhood,  never  going  far 
from  Purton  Street,  but  always  coming  back  every 
few  minutes  to  see  if  the  light  were  still  burning  in 
the  sitting-room  window,  showing  that  Mr.  Brand 
had  not  yet  returned.  He  did  not  pass  and  repass 
the  house,  as  he  knew  that  the  window  was  open, 
and  that  Pen's  ear  would  catch  the  sound  of  his 
footstep,  and  she  would  guess  his  object ;  but  once 
or  twice  he  drew  near  enough  to  look  in,  and  see 
her  as  she  sat  at  the  table,  leaning  her  head  on  her 
hands,  having  pushed  aside  the  book  and  work- 
basket,  which  could  not  occupy  her  thoughts,  a 
sad,  desolate,  little  figure,  which  made  Sandy's 
heart  bleed  as  he  watched  it. 

Once  as  he  stood  there,  he  heard  Mr.  Mangles' 
voice  urging  her  to  go  up  to  bed. 


WHAT'S  TO  BE  DONE?  153 

"  Doey  now  !  where  's  the  good  of  setting  up  ? 
I  ain't  near  done  my  pipe,  nor  sha'n't  adone  till 
the  guvnor  comes  in,  and  I  '11  see  to  him  all  right. 
He  were  just  about  put  out  t'  other  night,  a-finding 
you  a-waiting  up,  and,  bless  yer  !  I  'm  a  deal  more 
used  to  parties  like  that,  and  knows  how  to  hu- 
mor 'em.  Wants  to  tell  him  about  the  gentleman 
having  called  in,  doey  ?  Why  !  you  'd  a  lot  better 
wait  and  tell  him  to-morrow." 

Sandy  could  not  bear  to  hear  any  more,  and 
turned  away;  but  Mr.  Mangles'  persuasions  evi- 
dently failed  in  their  object,  for  when  next  he 
came  in  sight  of  the  window  with  the  undrawn 
blind,  the  little  figure  still  sat  there,  with  the  head 
leaning  on  the  hands,  in  the  same  attitude  of 
weary  patience,  and  Mr.  Mangles  had  retreated  to 
the  kitchen. 

Sandy  had  been  travelling  all  day,  and  was  not 
by  any  means  as  strong  as  he  had  been  before  his 
illness ;  and  young  Tom  would  certainly  have  been 
strengthened  in  his  impression,  that  Sandy  did  not 
know  how  to  take  care  of  himself,  if  he  could  have 
seen  him,  hard  upon  midnight,  pacing  the  streets 
about  Dalston ;  but  Sandy  forgot  his  own  weariness 
and  that  he  had  had  no  dinner,  and  partaken  very 
sparingly  of  Mr.  Mangles'  watercresses  and  bread 
and  butter.  The  distant  roar  of  the  great  city  was 


154 

sinking  into  the  comparative  silence  of  London 
night,  and,  in  the  streets  along  which  he  paced,  the 
passers-by  grew  few  and  far  between,  augmented  in 
numbers  and  noise  for  a  short  time  after  eleven 
when  the  public  houses  closed.  He  noticed  also 
at  that  time  a  reappearance  of  children  about  the 
streets,  and  the  sound  of  babies  crying,  and,  on 
questioning  a  group  huddled  in  a  doorway,  he 
found  that  these  sadly  wise  and  experienced  small 
creatures  had  found  it  was  better  to  be  out  of  the 
way  when  their  elders  came  in,  till  they  had  settled 
down  to  their  heavy  drunken  slumbers,  and  the 
children  could  creep  back  to  the  corner  of  bed  or 
floor  allotted  to  them,  without  fear  of  a  kick  or  a 
blow. 

Up  above,  the  August  sky  was  clear,  and  the 
great  white  moon  looked  down  as  quietly  and 
calmly  on  all  the  crime  and  cruelty  of  London, 
as  Sandy  had  seen  it  three  nights  before  on  the 
lake  of  Thun's  unruffled  breast,  and  on  the  fair 
snow  mountains  ;  but  Sandy's  heart  was  too  anx- 
ious and  troubled  to  get  any  calm  from  the  cold, 
unfeeling  thing,  that  sailed  so  serenely  through  the 
small  clouds ;  the  very  gas-lamps  seemed  more 
sympathetic  with  their  red  blinking  light. 

It  was  close  on  twelve  when  at  last  a  footstep 
turned  the  corner  into  Purton  Street,  familiar  and 


WHAT'S  TO  EE  DONE?  155 

yet  unfamiliar  to  Sandy.  It  was  Louis  Brand's 
step,  but  with  a  difference,  and  Sandy's  worst 
fears  were  realized  as  he  followed  him  along  the 
street,  and  noticed  how  heavy  and  uncertain  it 
was,  and  how  he  swerved  more  than  once  and 
caught  at  the  railings  to  steady  himself.  He 
stopped  once  in  the  light  of  the  street  lamp  and 
Sandy  saw  his  face,  the  face  that  Theresa  Brand 
loved  so  well,  and  died  loving  and  trusting;  the 
face  that  Pen  and  little  Tre  looked  up  to  as  their 
father's  face,  and  were  bidden  by  God's  law  to 
honor.  Heaven  pity  them  ! 

Sandy's  heart  was  so  hot  within  him  that  he 
could  hardly  restrain  himself  from  seizing  this 
wretched  man,  who  had  been  his  friend,  by  the 
arm,  and  telling  him  the  disgust  and  indignation 
he  felt,  but  he  resisted  the  impulse,  and  watched 
his  unsteady  progress  till  he  reached  No.  37  and 
made  an  ineffectual  attempt  to  open  the  door  with 
his  latch-key. 

The  next  moment  the  door  was  opened,  and 
Sandy  heard  Louis  Brand's  voice  in  some  indis- 
tinct exclamation  of  anger,  and,  involuntarily, 
Sandy  started  forward  and  was  on  the  doorstep 
as  the  door  closed,  in  time  to  hear  a  cry,  a  sob- 
bing, broken-hearted,  desolate,  little  cry.  Could 
he  have  struck  her  ?  Oh !  never,  never !  that 


156  PEN. 

tender,  gentle,  little  soul  with  her  mother's  sweet, 
appealing  eyes  ! 

He  seized  the  door  and  set  his  knee  against  it, 
as  if  he  would  have  forced  it  open,  and  then  his 
hands  dropped  to  his  side,  with  the  feeling  of  the 
uselessness  of  such  interference.  He  could  hear 
voices  on  the  other  side  of  the  door,  Mr.  Man- 
gles' among  them ;  and  he  stood  there  listening 
till  the  sounds  died  away,  and  the  lights  in  the 
downstairs  windows  were  extinguished,  and  a  pass- 
ing policeman  turned  his  bull's-eye  suspiciously 
on  the  tall  figure  that  stood  still  on  the  doorstep 
of  No.  37. 

He  could  not  have  struck  her  !  Sandy  felt  that 
he  could  have  murdered  that  one-time  friend  of 
his  if  he  could  have  believed  this  possible ;  but  it 
does  not  need  an  actual  physical  blow  to  hurt 
a  tender  creature  like  that  to  the  very  death. 
"There  's  others  as  it  just  kills,"  Mr.  Mangles  had 
said,  "  and  that 's  them." 

"What's  to  be  done?"  Sandy  asked  himself. 
"What  can  I  do?"  And,  as  he  asked  himself 
the  question,  there  came  back  to  him  the  memory 
of  an  early  spring  morning  in  Covent  Garden 
Market,  with  the  chill  dawn  struggling  into  the 
sky,  and  Pen's  childish  face,  white  and  sad  then, 
but  not  with  the  desperate  sadness  of  to-day,  look- 


WHAT'S  TO  BE  DONE?  157 

ing  at  him  across  the  white  lilies  and  pure  azalea, 
as  pure  and  as  innocent  as  the  flowers,  and  saying, 
"  I  was  thinking,  Sandy,  that  if  I  were  older  you 
might  have  married  me,  and  taken  care  of  Tre  and 
me  instead  of  father." 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

A   WOOING. 

"  T  NEVER  heard  tell  of  such  goings  on  !  "  Mrs. 

JL  Jones's  niece  said  next  morning,  "  and  him, 
as  aunt  says,  was  as  steady  and  reg'lar  in  his  'abits 
as  old  Time,  not  a-comin'  in  till  close  on  one  in 
the  morning  and  waken  me  up,  as  'ad  only  jes' 
drop  off  through  the  teethache,  as  ain't  'ad  no  rest 
for  nights,  and  then  not  a  word  but  mumbling 
something  about  'avin'  forgot  his  latch-key  !  And 
never  going  to  bed  all  night  neither,  but  a-trampin' 
up  and  down  over'ead,  and  the  bed  not  slep'  in, 
and  wantin'  his  breakfas'  at  eight  o'clock  as  negro 
slaves  ain't  nothin'  to  it ! " 

Sandy  was  hardly  accountable  for  his  actions 
that  night,  for  in  those  few  hours  of  pacing  up 
and  down,  he  had  gone  through  as  much  mental 
exercise  and  emotion  as  some  men  spread  over 
several  years  of  their  life,  had  read  the  whole 
first  volume  of  his  life's  romance  at  one  sitting, 
instead  of  a  page  now  and  a  chapter  then,  as  is 
the  ordinary  method  in  studying  that  enthralling 


A  WOOING.  159 

work.  He  had  to  rearrange  his  whole  life  and  get 
it  into  proper  perspective  from  this  very  new  point 
of  view ;  to  get  used  to  ideas  that  were  so  marvel- 
lous and  new,  and  yet  so  intoxicatingly  sweet,  that 
he  could  hardly  realize  that  such  enchantment  could 
befall  him  ;  to  try  and  put  all  the  facts  impartially 
before  himself  and  judge  what  was  right  and  fair 
and  best  for  every  one  ;  struggling  to  be  quite  rea- 
sonable, when  always  hitherto  he  had  seemed  to  be 
reasonable  without  a  struggle ;  to  put  aside  a  voice 
that  he  had  never  in  all  his  life  'been  conscious  of 
hearing  before,  and  that  now,  on  a  sudden,  had 
waxed  so  wondrously  eloquent,  that  it  made  his 
heart  beat,  and  his  pulses  throb,  and  his  eyes  grow 
dim.  All  his  life  hitherto  he  had  seemed  a  spec- 
tator .of  other  people's  joys  and  sorrows,  and  now, 
all  at  once,  he  was  the  actor,  and  was  aware  of 
strong  individuality  and  personal  wishes  that  were 
almost  passionate  in  their  strength,  and  rose-colored 
dreams,  not  for  others,  or  rather  not  only  for  others, 
but  for  himself. 

It  seemed  like  an  incredible,  almost  absurd  fairy 
tale  at  first,  the  idea  that  he,  Sandy  Maclaren,  who 
was  getting  to  regard  himself  as  quite  an  elderly 
man,  and  was  certainly  so  regarded  by  young  Tom 
and  his  father,  should  have  a  wife,  a  sweet  child- 
wife  like  Pen ;  should  have  the  right,  not  only  to 


160  PEN. 

meddle  in  her  concerns  now  and  again,  and  put 
in  an  occasional  helping  hand  to  avert  some  of  the 
catastrophes  that  threatened  her,  but  to  take  her 
clear  out  of  all  the  trouble ;  that  it  should  be  his 
duty  and  his  right  to  shield  her  from  the  least 
breath  of  sorrow  or  uneasiness ;  to  compass  her 
about  with  sweet  observances ;  to  make  her  life 
all  sunshine,  and  lead  her  to  forget  poverty,  and 
anxiety,  and  care. 

This  child-wife  should  have  as  long  a  time  of 
happy  girlhood  as  she  pleased,  before  she  settled 
to  the  more  serious  happiness  of  married  life,  she 
should  be  like  other  girls  —  be  beautifully  dressed, 
and  go  to  balls  and  dance,  and  ride  in  the  Row. 
He  racked  his  brains  to  remember  the  sort  of  life 
his  young  lady  cousins  lived,  at  the  time  when  he 
used  to  frequent  their  houses  in  the  holidays,  and, 
with  stupid  want  of  observation,  had  hardly  no- 
ticed their  butterfly  comings  and  goings,  except  to 
think  them  silly  and  tiresome. 

If  only  some  prophetic  feeling  had  told  him 
then  that  twenty  years  or  so  later  he  should  want 
such  experience  for  his  wife,  what  a  store  of  useful 
information  he  might  have  hoarded.  Now  the 
only  thing  that  remained  with  him  was  a  confused 
memory  of  the  scent  of  stephanotis,  and  of  cob- 
webby dresses  that  seemed  to  tear  if  school-boy 


A   WOOING.  l6l 

feet  came  within  half  a  mile  of  them,  and  of  a 
French  maid  chattering  volubly  as  she  gave  fin- 
ishing touches.  It  was  not  easy  to  imagine  little 
Pen  with  her  rusty,  black  frock,  and  her  fair,  ruf- 
fled plaits,  and  her  serious  face  in  such  circum- 
stances, and,  after  all,  Sandy  hardly  wished  such  a 
transformation  in  his  Cinderella. 

It  should  all  be  just  as  she  liked  ;  if  she  had  a 
fancy  for  further  education  —  though,  to  Sandy's 
mind,  this  was  quite  unnecessary  —  she  should 
have  masters  and  teaching  of  the  best.  She  should 
travel  and  see  beautiful  scenery  and  pictures ;  she 
should  go  to  the  opera ;  she  should  be  presented 
at  court.  The  reader  will  observe  to  what  a  length 
Sandy's  madness  had  reached  when  he  had  come 
to  planning  a  society  life  for  Pen,  a  life  which 
was  of  all  things  the  one  he  had  hitherto  most 
loathed. 

He  rummaged  about  in  an  out-of-the-way  box 
which  he  had  not  overhauled  for  years,  making 
much  noise  in  the  process  over  the  long-suffering 
head  of  Mrs.  Jones's  niece,  for  some  rings  of  his 
mother's,  which  had  been  sent  him  soon  after 
Tom's  marriage,  when  his  father  had  made  a  divi- 
sion of  his  wife's  jewelry  between  her  two  sons. 
Sandy  had  never  set  much  store  by  the  things,  and 
accordingly  they  had  never  been  lost  or  stolen. 


1 62  PEN. 

Among  them  was  her  wedding-ring,  such  a  little 
one  !  Sandy  recalled  having  heard  that  her  hands 
were  very  small,  he  could  just  get  the  top  of  his 
little  finger  into  it,  and,  as  he  held  it  there,  a 
warmer  feeling  for  the  dead  mother  came  into  her 
son's  heart  than  he  had  ever  been  conscious  of 
before,  and  a  wish  that  she  were  living  to  take  his 
little  bride  into  her  arms  and  love  and  bless  her ; 
and  he  kissed  the  little  dull  gold  circle,  partly  for 
the  mother's  sake,  partly  for  Pen's. 

He  was  taking  it  quite  for  granted,  you  will  say, 
that  Pen  would  agree  to  marry  him,  and  I  do  not 
think  that,  among  the  many  doubts  and  uncertain- 
ties that  occurred  to  his  mind,  he  ever  reckoned  on 
any  unwillingness  on  Pen's  part. 

That  eight-o'clock  breakfast,  which  was  so  com- 
plained of  by  Mrs.  Jones's  niece,  would  have  been 
asked  for  two  hours  earlier  if  it  had  not  been  for 
severe  self-restraint  on  the  part  of  Sandy ;  there  is 
a  good  deal  to  be  done  and  seen  after  on  the  eve 
of  one's  wedding-day,  especially  when  the  propo- 
sal has  yet  to  be  made  and  the  parents'  consent 
obtained. 

He  had  meant  to  see  Mr.  Mangles'  employers 
and  get  the  immediate  removal  of  that  worthy,  but, 
on  reflection,  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that,  since 
the  children  (he  could  not  all  of  a  sudden  get  out 


A   WOOING.  163 

of  thinking  of  Pen  as  a  child)  would  leave  Purton 
Street  the  following  day,  and  little  Tre  was  evidently 
fond  of  the  old  man,  and  Pen  had  got  used  to  his 
presence,  and  he  was  kind  and  helpful,  it  might  be 
as  well  to  let  him  remain  for  another  day. 

The  first  thing  to  be  done  was  to  see  Louis 
Brand,  and  that  was  not  to  be  accomplished  very 
early  in  the  morning  at  the  best  of  times;  and 
when  Sandy  knocked  at  the  door  of  No.  37  at 
ten  o'clock  he  hardly  hoped  to  find  him  visible, 
and  was  surprised  to  find  he  was  in  the  studio, 
which  Mr.  Mangles  irreverently  described  as  "  fust 
floor  back;"  and  Sandy  made  his  way  up  there 
unannounced. 

"  For  heaven's  sake,  shut  that  door,  and  don't 
make  such  an  infernal  noise  !  —  Why,  hollo  !  Sandy, 
is  it  you?  Where  on  earth  have  you  sprung  from? 
And  what 's  become  of  you  all  these  months  ?  Oh  ! 
you  need  n't  trouble  to  look  at  that,"  with  a  dreary 
laugh,  "  there  's  nothing  new ;  "  for  Sandy,  with 
hardly  a  glance  at  the  prostrate  figure  of  Louis 
Brand  lying  stretched  on  the  divan  half  dressed, 
had  crossed  the  room  to  the  easel  and  turned  the 
canvas,  which  stood  upon  it  with  its  face  to  the 
wall. 

Nothing  new  indeed  !  it  seemed  to  Sandy  that 
the  pretty,  little  view  of  Monkton  Street  with  the 


1 64  PEN. 

old-fashioned,  irregular  houses  and  groups  of  fish- 
ermen coming  down  with  their  nets,  was  exactly 
at  the  same  stage  as  when  he  had  looked  at  it 
last,  four  months  ago,  when  Louis  Brand  was 
working  enthusiastically  at  it,  with  hardly  time  to 
spare  to  answer  the  questions  Sandy  asked  him. 

Sandy,  standing  there  in  grim  silence,  looking 
down  at  the  pretty,  unfinished  picture,  was  not  a 
soothing  sight  to  any  one  with  a  racking  headache, 
and  nerves  all  strained  and  out  of  tune,  and  a 
feverish  mouth  and  an  irritable  brain.  In  such 
circumstances  it  is  almost  unendurable  to  have  a 
personified  conscience  standing  there,  an  accusing 
angel,  as  represented  by  Sandy  in  his  dusty  coat, 
with  his  eyebrows  drawn  together,  and  his  mouth 
shut  in  such  grimly  eloquent  silence. 

Louis  Brand  irritably  tossed  over  on  his  side,  to 
be  out  of  sight  of  the  tall  figure. 

"  Oh,  yes  !  —  all  right !  —  I  know  !  —  Don't  hit 
a  fellow  when  he  's  down  !  " 

Still  silence.  Sandy  was  realizing  how  long  this 
must  have  been  going  on,  how  long  Pen  must  have 
been  suffering  and  fretting  and  sorrowing,  almost 
ever  since  he  went  away ;  all  those  four  months  of 
beautiful  spring,  and  fair  early  summer,  and  hot 
midsummer  weather,  no  more  work  done,  no 
more  money  coming  in  —  if  only  he  had  known  ! 


A   WOOING.  165 

By  and  by  he  came  and  sat  down  in  the  arm- 
chair by  the  divan,  and  Louis  Brand  drew  himself 
up  into  a  sitting  posture  with  his  back  against  the 
wall,  and  his  knees  up  to  his  chin,  and  his  hands  in 
his  hair,  which,  Sandy  noticed,  had  streaks  of  gray 
in  its  blackness. 

There  was  something  so  hopeless  in  his  appear- 
ance, so  despairing  and  pitiful,  that  the  flame  of 
anger  that  had  been  burning  in  Sandy's  heart 
against  him  all  night  died  down  into  the  ashes  of 
pity,  and,  after  a  few  minutes'  silence,  he  stretched 
out  his  hand  and  laid  it  on  Louis  Brand's  shoulder. 

"Why  didn't  you  tell  me,  old  fellow?  Why 
didn't  you  let  me  know?" 

And  Louis  Brand's  head  sank  lower,  and  the 
bitter,  stubborn  feeling  of  resentment  which  had 
been  growing  in  him  since  Sandy  came  in,  and  the 
excuses,  and  the  sense  of  somehow  having  been 
hardly  dealt  with  and  having  more  to  contend  with 
than  other  men,  and  having,  after  all,  not  been. so 
much  to  blame,  melted  away,  and  he  saw  himself 
pretty  well  as  he  really  was,  without  the  pretences 
and  allowances  and  excuses  with  which  we  are  all 
of  us  in  the  habit  of  decking  out  ourselves  before 
our  indulgent  mind's  eye.  I  do  not  fancy  if  Sandy 
had  hurled  at  him  all  those  indignant  reproaches 
that  had  been  turning  on  his  lips  the  night  before, 


1 66  PEN. 

Louis  Brand  would  have  felt  half  so  utterly  abject 
and  worthless  and  inexcusable,  as  he  did  with  the 
touch  of  Sandy's  pitying  hand  on  his  shoulder. 
Perhaps  when  the  books  are  opened,  the  pity  in 
the  Judge's  eye  may  not  be  the  least  of  that  day's 
terrors  to  the  guilty  soul. 

He  was  in  no  condition  for  any  reasonable  con- 
sultation as  to  what  had  best  be  done ;  at  one  time 
he  grew  hysterical  and  Sandy  was  afraid  that  Pen 
might  hear  or  that  he  would  have  to  call  in  help  ; 
but  then  he  quieted  down  into  silence  that  seemed 
almost  the  stupefaction  of  despair,  and  Sandy 
hardly  knew  if  he  listened  or  understood,  as  he  un- 
folded to  him  that  plan  he  had  been  maturing,  as 
he  tramped  up  and  down  his  bedroom  in  the  night, 
and  which  sounded  still  more  strange  and  improba- 
ble, as  he  put  it  into  words  in  broad  daylight ;  it 
seemed  like  telling  a  dream,  with  all  its  grotesque 
abruptness  and  want  of  sequence,  facts  and  persons 
shaken  up  together  anyhow,  like  bits  of  glass  in  a 
kaleidoscope,  which  form  now  and  then  pretty  and 
striking  combinations. 

"  Do  as  you  like  !  Do  as  you  like  !  "  was  all 
that  Louis  Brand  said.  He  expressed  no  surprise, 
he  made  no  objection.  It  was  certainly  an  unique 
way  of  receiving  a  proposal  for  a  daughter's  hand  ; 
and  when  Sandy  got  up  at  last  to  go  and  find  Pen, 


A  WOOING.  167 

it  was  with  an  unsatisfactory  feeling  of  doubt 
whether  the  consent  Louis'  Brand  had  given,  was 
anything  more  than  a  mechanical  agreement,  with- 
out any  consciousness  of  his  meaning. 

"You  understand?"  he  turned  back  to  ask, 
"  there  is  no  mistake  about  it  ?  I  am  going  to  ask 
little  Pen  to  marry  me  to-morrow,  and  I  shall  take 
her  and  Tre  right  away.  You  understand?  You 
have  no  objection?  You  can't  suggest  any  other 
plan?" 

And  then  Louis  Brand  lifted  his  head,  and  looked 
up  with  his  haggard,  sunken  eyes,  from  which  all 
the  brightness  had  gone,  and  said  :  "  Their  mother 
has  gone,  the  children  had  better  go  too.  It 's  all 
right,  — you  can  do  as  you  like." 

And  then  his  head  fell  again,  and  Sandy  left  him, 
sitting  there  with  his  head  on  his  folded  arms,  rest- 
ing on  his  knees. 

There  was  no  one  in  the  sitting-room  below,  and 
the  only  sound  to  be  heard  was  Mr.  Mangles 
whistling  and  knife-cleaning  in  the  kitchen,  so 
Sandy  made  his  way  down  there,  and  found  him 
dividing  his  attention  between  the  knife-board  and 
a  small  saucepan  on  the  fire,  from  which  issued  a 
savory  smell  when  the  lid  was  raised. 

"  Good-morning  !  Where  are  the  young  ladies?  " 
asked  Sandy. 


1 68  PEN. 

Mr.  Mangles  jerked  a  carving-knife  over  his 
shoulder.  "  The  little  un  have  had  a  terrible  bad 
night,  she  'ave,  and  she  Ve  just  drop  off  and  I  'm 
gettin'  a  drop  of  broth  ready  agin  she  wakes.  She 
brisked  up  when  you  come  along,  as  has  a  deal  of 
sperrit,  but  I  could  see  as  she  was  pretty  well  done 
when  I  step  up  to  say  good-night;  she  couldn't 
'ardly  do  more  than  kiss  'er  little  'and,  bless  'er ! 
I  ain't  'ad  no  notice  from  my  chiefs  to  clear  out,  I 
don't  know  if  you  Ve  called  round  there  ?  I  got 
my  traps  together  thinking  as  'ow  I  'd  be  fetched 
most  likely  fust  thing." 

"  No,"  said  Sandy.  "  I  have  been  thinking  it 
over,  and  I  thought  that  could  be  settled  to-morrow. 
I'm  going  to  —  "and  here  the  intended  bride- 
groom stammered  and  grew  red  to  the  roots  of  his 
hair;  it  seemed  to  him  almost  as  ridiculous  an 
idea,  his  marrying  Pen,  as  if  Mr.  Mangles  had  pro- 
posed to  marry  Tre,  so  he  ended  the  sentence  — 
"  take  the  children  away  to-morrow,  and  I  expect 
Mr.  Brand  will  leave  too.  Is  Miss  Pen  upstairs? 
I  '11  go  and  find  her." 

Pen  came  to  the  door,  with  her  finger  to  her 
lips,  when  he  knocked,  and  she  showed  him  little 
Tre,  lying  half  across  the  bed,  which  was  all  tumbled 
and  tossed  about  with  the  night's  feverish  disquiet. 
There  was  no  doubt  the  child  looked  very  ill,  as 


A  WOOING.  169 

she  lay  in  this  exhausted  sleep,  with  her  eyes  only 
half  closed  and  the  dry  lips  drawn  and  parched, 
and  her  arms  tossed  over  her  head,  in  an  unnatural 
attitude,  quite  unlike  a  healthy  child's  sleeping 
grace. 

Sandy  stood  a  moment,  looking  down  at  her, 
trying  to  keep  what  he  felt  from  appearing  in  his 
face  ;  for  Pen  was  scanning  it,  with  that  craving  to 
read  a  brighter  opinion  than  she  could  persuade 
herself  to  feel. 

The  little  bedroom  was  so  hot,  the  sun  was  beat- 
ing on  the  window,  and  the  blind  had  come  partly 
unnailed  from  the  roller,  letting  in  a  shaft  of  dusty 
sunlight,  which  was  only  kept  from  falling  full  on 
the  child's  face  by  the  bed-curtain  being  pinned 
across,  thus  also  keeping  out  the  air  —  such  as  it 
was,  coming  from  the  dust-bins  and  back-yards  of 
Purton  Street.  A  vision  rose  before  Sandy's  mind's 
eye  of  some  big,  airy  bedroom,  with  trees  outside 
the  open  window,  and  the  wide  sea  beyond,  and 
fresh,  sweet,  life-giving  air  blowing  in,  and  dainty, 
little,  white  beds,  and  a  motherly,  responsible- 
looking  nurse,  under  whose  skilful  treatment  fever 
and  exhaustion  might  be  chased  away,  and  happy, 
bonnie,  little  Tre  come  back,  with  bright  eyes  and 
round,  rosy  cheeks  and  merry  laughter. 

And  then  Sandy  took  Pen's  hands  in  his  and 


I/O  PEN. 

drew  her  away  from  the  bedside,  out  on  to  the 
little  landing,  and  closed  the  door  gently  behind 
them.  Such  a  dreary,  dingy,  little  landing,  with 
the  stair-carpet  ragged  and  worn,  and  one  of 
the  paltry,  little  banisters  splintered  and  broken ; 
with  the  paint  pealing  off  the  hand-rail  and  the 
skirting-board,  and  a  jagged  strip  torn  from  the 
wall-paper,  which  would  have  had  the  intelligent 
public  believe  that  houses  in  Purton  Street  were 
built  of  huge  blocks  of  glistening  gray  granite 
divided  by  blue  mortar.  The  whole  scene  in  its 
meanness  and  unattractiveness  was  photographed 
on  Sandy's  brain,  to  be  recalled  in  many  a  year  to 
come  as  holding  all  that  earth  has  of  the  most 
beautiful,  for  which  he  would  gladly  have  resigned 
the  most  splendid  surroundings,  luxury,  picturesque- 
ness,  everything,  to  stand  once  more  with  Pen's 
little  hands  in  his  and  with  the  wonderful  growing 
feeling  swelling,  strengthening,  living  in  his  heart. 

Oh,  reader,  it  is  a  great  mystery,  this  feeling  of 
love  !  I  wonder  why  we  all  are  so  apt  to  make  a 
joke  of  it,  when  Saint  Paul  himself  spoke  of  it  as 
so  great  a  mystery  that  it  might  be  even  compared 
to  the  union  between  Christ  and  His  Church  ! 

"Pen,"  he  said,  "little  Pen" — and,  while  he. 
hesitated,  the   sounds   of  Mr.    Mangles'    birdlike 
whistle   rose   from  the   kitchen,  and  swish,  swish 


A  WOOING.  I/I 

from  the  knife-board,  "  I  am  years  older  than  you, 
and  you  are  hardly  more  than  a  child,  and  I  am 
not  a  bit  the  sort  of  man  to  take  a  girl's  fancy,  but 
I  want  to  know  if  you  will  marry  me,  and  let  me 
take  you  and  Tre  right  away,  and  try  to  make  up 
to  you  for  all  the  trouble  and  wretchedness?  I 
think  you  like  me,  Pen  —  you  and  Tre  have  always 
seemed  to  like  me,  and  I  am  fonder  of  you  than 
all  the  world  besides,  and  my  whole  life  shall  be 
given  to  make  you  happy." 

She  was  silent,  gazing  up  at  him  with  wide, 
startled  eyes,  that  seemed  fascinated  by  his  rapid 
words,  so  different  from  his  usual  slow  speech. 
Her  hands  in  his  turned  quite  cold,  but  she  did 
not  take  them  away,  and  he  drew  them  nearer  and 
pressed  them  closer,  as  he  went  on  speaking. 

"  If  there  were  any  other  way,  I  would  not  ask  it 
of  you,  and  it  will  be  merely  a  form,  over  and  done 
with  in  half  an  hour,  and  then  we  will  forget  all 
about  it,  and  you  shall  still  be  little  Pen,  still  a 
child  as  long  as  ever  you  like.  I  will  be  so  patient, 
dear,  till  some  day —  some  day  —  " 

And  then  his  voice  shook  and  broke,  and  his 
eyes  took  up  the  tale  of  what  might  befall  when 
that  some  day  came. 

And  then,  of  a  sudden,  he  flung  her  hands  from 
him  and  leaned  against  the  wall,  and  hid  his  face 


1/2  PEN. 

from  the  clear  eyes  that  looked  so  simply  up  to 
his. 

"Oh,  my  God!  am  I  doing  right?  Isn't  it  a 
wicked,  cowardly  thing  I  'm  doing,  a  thing  for 
which  some  day  you  may  turn  and  reproach  me 
for  having  spoilt  your  life  and  done  you  a  grievous 
wrong,  that  your  sweet,  young  life  should  have 
been  tied  to  mine,  before  you  knew  what  it 
meant?" 

She  was  trembling  a  little  now,  and  the  color 
was  coming  and  going  in  her  cheeks,  and  her 
hands  were  twisting  together,  and  her  eyes  had 
dropped  with  a  sudden  feeling  of  shame,  some 
utterly  new  feeling,  that  there  might  be  more  in 
her  eyes  than  even  Sandy  should  read  all  at  once, 
for  the  voice  of  love  to  the  pure,  young  heart  is  as 
the  voice  of  the  Lord  walking  in  the  garden  in  the 
cool  of  the  evening  to  Adam  and  Eve,  and  it  is 
ashamed  and  seeks  to  hide  itself. 

In  those  few  minutes,  since  Sandy  closed  the 
door  on  little,  sleeping  Tre,  before  Mr.  Mangles 
had  come  to  the  end  of  that  elaborate  tune  he 
was  whistling,  before  the  knives  of  the  family,  few 
as  they  were,  had  been  polished  to  his  satisfaction, 
little  Pen  had  crossed  the  boundary,  "where  the 
brook  and  river  meet,  womanhood  and  childhood 
fleet."  Sometimes  the  transit  takes  years,  some- 


A   WOOING.  1/3 

times  it  is  made  in  a  moment,  as  there  was  a 
moment  when  marble  Galatea  blushed  into  liv- 
ing, loving  womanhood  under  Pygmalion's  eyes,  or 
when  the  sleeping  Princess  woke  from  her  long 
slumber  at  the  Prince's  kiss. 

"  You  shall  still  be  a  child  as  long  as  ever  you 
like,"  Sandy  had  said,  not  knowing  that  even  as 
he  spoke,  childhood  had  gone  and  that  little  Pen 
could  be  a  child  no  more. 

"Will  you  trust  me,  little  Pen?"  he  said,  and 
for  all  answer  she  put  her  hands  in  his.  - 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE   WEDDING-DRESS. 

I  WONDER  if  there  was  ever  a  bride,  how- 
ever young  or  however  old,  who  thought 
nothing  of  her  wedding-dress.  Certainly,  if  such 
there  have  been,  too  wise  and  experienced  or  too 
young  and  innocent  to  think  of  such  a  trifle,  Pen 
was  not  one  of  them  ;  for  Tre  was  greatly  mystified 
and  slightly  provoked  by  Pen's  persistent  divings 
into  drawers,  and  burrowings  into  heaps  of  long- 
disused  garments,  in  out-of-the-way  boxes,  till  at 
last  a  certain  white  muslin  frock  was  brought  to 
light,  which  Pen  had  worn  more  than  a  year  before 
at  her  Confirmation ;  a  frock  of  which  every  tuck 
had  been  run,  and  every  simple  little  fold  arranged, 
by  her  mother's  hand.  I  believe  it  is  the  fashion 
now  for  grown-up  young  ladies  to  speak  of  their 
outer  garments  as  frocks ;  they  used  in  their  moth- 
ers' time  to  be  called  dresses,  and  in  their  grand- 
mothers' gowns ;  but  this  little  white  Confirmation 
garment  of  Pen's  was  no  elaborate  Parisian  con- 
fection or  arrangement  of  some  exquisite  man- 


THE   WEDDING-DRESS.  1/5 

milliner,  but  a  frock  pure  and  simple;  certainly 
simple  as  far  as  any  fashion  or  style  was  concerned, 
and  as  pure  as  was  to  be  expected  after  a  year  of 
even  the  most  careful  stowing  away  in  London. 

It  was  crumpled,  to  be  sure,  but  that  was  easily 
to  be  rectified  with  an  iron ;  but  Pen's  eyes,  as  she 
held  it  up  before  her,  detected  a  shortness  in  the 
skirt,  which  no  shaking  or  pulling  would  obviate. 
It  was  a  humiliating  fact,  but  Pen  could  not  dis- 
guise from  herself,  that  she  had  grown  since  that 
frock  was  made,  and  that  there  was  nothing  for  it 
but  to  let  down  a  tuck  to  make  it  wearable. 

Now  I  do  not  think  that  in  all  the  various  cir- 
cumstances attending  weddings,  it  can  often  have 
been  necessary  for  a  bride  to  let  down  a  tuck  in 
her  wedding-dress,  so  I  think  I  may  claim  original- 
ity in  this  respect  for  my  little  heroine  ;  though  she 
felt  bitterly  ashamed  of  it  herself,  and  her  cheek 
grew  quite  hot  and  flushed,  as  she  took  out  the  care- 
ful, little  stitches  that  mother  had  sat  up  so  late  to 
finish,  the  night  before  the  Confirmation. 

Tre  was  very  restless  and  fretful  that  day,  and 
more  than  once  Pen  had  to  stop  in  her  unpicking, 
and  take  the  feverish,  uneasy,  little  thing  in  her  arms, 
and  press  the  hot  cheek  to  hers,  and  rock  gently 
backwards  and  forwards,  crooning  out  some  tune, 
a  Moody  and  Sankey  hymn  or  a  music-hall  song 


1 76  PEN. 

or  an  operatic  bit  made  familiar  by  the  organs. 
Nothing  seemed  to  quiet  Tre  so  well  as  this,  and 
it  would  sometimes  lull  her  into  a  doze,  not  sound 
enough  however  to  last,  if  the  song  or  the  move- 
ment ceased  for  a  moment. 

In  the  afternoon  Dr.  Bell  came  in,  having  been 
sent  by  Sandy ;  and  he  stopped  quite  a  long  time, 
and  looked  so  kind  and  pitiful,  and  scolded  them 
for  not  having  sent  for  him  sooner,  as  if  in  the 
course  of  his  practice  he  did  not,  day  after  day, 
come  across  cases  as  piteous  and  heart-breaking  as 
these  two  little,  motherless  girls. 

"  Mr.  Maclaren  tells  me  he  is  going  to  take  you 
both  away  to-morrow  if  little  Miss  Tre  here  is  up 
to  the  journey."  He  wondered  a  little  at  the  sud- 
den rush  of  color  into  Pen's  listening  face,  and  it 
recalled  to  his  memory  a  similar  manifestation  on 
Sandy's  part,  when  he  mentioned  this  arrangement, 
but  this  coincidence  did  not  lead  him  within  a 
hundred  miles  of  the  right  conclusion.  "  She  cer- 
tainly would  not  be  up  to  it  to-day,"  he  went  on, 
"  but  this  sort  of  feverish  attack  is  often  intermit- 
tent, and  you  tell  me  she  seemed  quite  herself 
yesterday,  so  I  dare  say  to-morrow  may  be  a  favor- 
able day.  If  necessary  precautions  are  taken  and 
not  too  long  a  journey  is  attempted,  I  think  it  can 
be  managed  without  risk.  But  I  will  come  in  and 


THE   WEDDING-DRESS.  1 77 

see  her  to-morrow  morning,  and  will  send  in  a 
draught,"  etc.,  etc. 

"Is  Sandy  going  to  take  us  away,  Pen?"  Tre 
asked  when  Dr.  Bell  had  gone.  "  Where  are  we 
going?  Is  it  to  that  place  he  told  us  about,  where 
they  eat  macaroni  and  the  lizards  run  about? 
It 's  so  far  off,  Pen,  and  I  don't  like  macaroni, 
and  Mr.  Mangles  thinks  lizards  bite.  I  think  I  "d 
rather  stop  here.  I  like  near  places,"  said  the 
weary,  little  soul,  aching  all  over,  and  restless,  and 
wanting  something  without  knowing  what.  "  And 
oh,  Pen,  it 's  not  naughtiness  !  it 's  not  naughti- 
ness !  but  I  do  so  want  to  see  the  monkey  with 
the  red  jacket !  "  And  then  she  cried,  protesting 
all  the  time  it  was  not  naughtiness,  and  yet  half 
believing  it  was,  and  that  little  girls  who  cried  for 
monkeys  must  be  naughty;  knowing  at  any  rate 
that  she  was  very  wretched,  and  wanted  something 
very  much,  dreadfully,  and  she  thought  what  she 
wanted  must  be  the  monkey,  unless  it  was  some- 
thing else,  perhaps  mother. 

She  was  too  ill  and  tired  and  confused  in  the 
head  even  to  be  curious  and  ask  questions ;  and 
Pen  could  only  comfort  her  and  cuddle  her  up 
against  the  heart  that  was  so  full  of  its  new  happi- 
ness, —  painfully  full  as  if  it  must  burst  with  the 
greatness  of  it. 


1/8  PEN. 

She  had  told  it  to  mother.  For  the  last  few 
months,  when  there  had  been  so  much  trouble 
and  no  one  but  Tre  to  tell  it  to,  she  had  found 
it  a  great  relief,  when  Tre  was  in  bed  at  night, 
to  kneel  down  by  the  little  bed  and  hide  her 
head  in  the  bedclothes,  and  pour  it  all  out, 
aloud  sometimes,  sometimes  to  herself,  but  al- 
ways fancying  it  was  to  mother  she  was  telling 
it,  and  always  keeping  up  the  same  loving  little 
pretence  that  mother  and  daughter  had  preserved 
between  them  about  all  that  concerned  Louis 
Brand,  —  it  was  never  his  fault,  he  was  never  to 
be  blamed,  some  excuse  must  always  be  found 
for  him. 

But  that  morning,  when  Pen  came  back  into 
Tre's  room,  after  that  talk  with  Sandy,  which  had 
changed  her  from  a  child  to  a  woman ;  when  she 
found  the  little  sister  still  asleep,  and,  kneeling 
down,  buried  her  face  in  the  old  fashion  to  tell 
what  had  happened  to  mother,  that  mother  seemed 
so  near,  so  distinctly  present,  that  when  the  touch 
of  a  hand  came  on  her  head,  it  did  not  the  least 
surprise  or  frighten  the  girl,  nor  would  she  have 
believed  if  you  or  I  or  any  number  of  reliable 
witnesses  had  testified  that  it  was  only  Tre's  fe- 
verish, little  hand  that  had  rested  there  and  was 
then  tossed  away  again. 


THE   WEDDING-DRESS.  1/9 

"  She  knows  about  it  and  she  is  pleased,"  Pen 
told  herself,  with  firm  conviction. 

Sandy  had  given  her  his  mother's  wedding-ring. 
Small  as  it  was,  it  had  slipped  easily  on  to  her  finger 
—  such  a  childish-looking  finger,  that  had  never  had 
a  ring  round  it  before,  since  the  bead-rings  which 
she  used  to  thread  when  she  was  almost  a  baby. 
He  had  meant  to  take  it  back  again  as  a  guide 
for  the  size  of  the  ring  he  would  buy ;  but,  after 
the  manner  of  rings,  especially  on  unaccustomed 
fingers,  it  did  not  come  off  as  easily  as  it  went 
on,  and  just  as  she  was  trying  to  remove  it,  she 
fancied  she  heard  Tre  calling,  and  went  away,  still 
with  the  ring  on  her  finger,  and  there  it  remained, 
while  she  told  mother;  and,  after  that,  till  Tre 
woke,  she  sat  and  looked  at  her  left  hand,  with  a 
little  laugh  lurking  round  the  corners  of  her  mouth, 
that  were  wont  to  droop  so  sadly,  and  with  a 
tinge  of  color  in  her  cheeks  that  were  usually 
so  pale  and  wan.  Do  what  she  would  that  hand 
would  not  look  natural  with  the  wedding-ring  on 
it,  would  not  look  a  bit  like  mother's  hand,  on 
which  the  wedding-ring,  loose  as  it  became  in 
her  long  illness,  seemed  as  natural  a  part  as 
either  of  the  slender  fingers  or  the  blue  veins. 
She  took  it  off  by  and  by,  and  put  it  on  the  ribbon 
she  wore  round  her  neck,  suspending  a  little 


180  PEN. 

locket  Sandy  had  given  her  on  her  eighth  birth- 
day, with  a  lock  of  mother's  hair  in  it. 

There  were  so  many  interruptions  to  the  un- 
doing of  that  tuck,  from  Tre's  restlessness  and  Dr. 
Bell's  long  visit,  and  from  various  little  household 
occupations,  that  could  not  be  dispensed  with 
even  on  the  eve  of  a  wedding-day,  that  it  was  not 
till  the  evening  that  the  ironing  could  be  accom- 
plished, and  then  not  till  Tre  was  in  bed ;  and  Pen 
more  than  once  debated  in  her  mind  if  her  black 
frock  could  not  be  made  to  do.  But  at  last  Tre 
was  quiet  and  inclined  to  sleep,  and  father,  when 
she  knocked  at  the  studio  door,  called  out  that 
he  did  not  want  anything  and  that  she  had  better 
go  to  bed. 

She  stood  outside  the  door,  with  the  crumpled 
muslin  frock  on  her  arm,  feeling  a  little  sore  and 
sad.  Sandy  had  told  her  that  father  knew  all 
about  it  and  was  quite  satisfied,  and  painful  as 
were  some  of  the  memories  of  the  past  months, 
there  was  nothing  but  love  in  her  heart  just  then, 
and  she  wanted  to  tell  him  so  and  yet  she  did 
not  want  to  worry  him.  It  was  comfort  untold 
to  know  he  was  there  and  seemed  to  have  no 
intention  of  going  out,  so  there  would  be  no 
weary  vigil  for  her  with  the  usual  grievous  hu- 
miliation of  his  return.  He  had  been  out  for 


THE   WEDDING-DRESS.  l8l 

a  short  time  in  the  afternoon,  and  her  heart 
had  sunk  when  she  heard  him  leave  the  house, 
but  he  had  come  back  in  a  very  few  minutes, 
and  had  again  shut  himself  up  in  the  studio,  and 
had  hardly  answered  when  she  came  to  the  door 
before. 

"May  I  come  in- and  say  good-night?"  she 
asked. 

"  Good-night,"  was  the  reply. 

"  May  I  come  in?" 

No  answer,  and  she  went  in  with  her  heart 
beating. 

He  was  sitting  just  as  Sandy  left  him  on  the 
divan,  with  his  knees  drawn  up  and  his  head  rest- 
ing on  them.  The  small  benzoline  lamp  on  the 
mantelpiece  gave  a  dull,  smoky  light,  that  only 
seemed  to  make  the  darkness  of  the  room  more 
apparent,  and,  through  the  uncurtained  window, 
the  moon  threw  a  long,  cold  line  of  light  across 
the  room,  on  to  the  empty  easel  from  which  the 
picture  had  fallen,  or  been  thrown,  face  downwards, 
on  the  floor. 

Pen  came  across  and  knelt  by  his  side,  timidly 
putting  her  arm  over  his  bowed  shoulders. 

"Father,"  she  said,  "won't  you  kiss  me?" 

He  looked  up  at  her  with  eyes  that  hardly 
seemed  to  recognize  her,  and  then  disengaged  her 


I 82  PEN. 

arm  from  his  neck  and  turned  her  head  so  that  the 
light  of  the  lamp  fell  upon  her  face. 

"  Theresa  !  "  he  said,  "  sweet  wife  !  lady-love  ! 
good-by  !  "  And  then  he  seemed  to  recollect  him- 
self, and  he  turned  almost  fretfully  from  her.  "  Go 
to  bed,  child,"  he  said ;  "  I  never  thought  you 
were  the  least  like  your  mother.  Why  should  you 
look  at  me  with  her  eyes?" 

Then  he  relapsed  into  his  old  position,  and  she 
sat  by  his  side,  frightened  by  his  strange  manner 
and  afraid  to  irritate  him  by  further  words. 

Presently  she  ventured  to  lay  her  hand  on  his 
shabby  velvet  sleeve,  and  he  started,  as  if  he  had 
been  unconscious  of  her  presence,  but  he  spoke 
more  kindly. 

"  There,  run  away,  little  Pen ;  it  can't  be  helped, 
and  the  sooner  you  forget  all  about  me  the  better, 
but  you  can  tell  her —  Oh  !  there,  never  mind  ! 
Good-night."  And  he  kissed  her  and  pushed  her 
gently  away  from  him,  and  she  v/ent  away,  still 
more  sad  and  puzzled  than  when  she  came. 

It  was  rather  difficult  to  explain  to  Mr.  Mangles 
the  necessity  for  ironing  a  muslin  dress  at  nine 
o'clock  at  night,  when  there  was  no  one  to  sit  up 
for,  nor  object  in  devising  work  to  fill  up  time 
which  otherwise  might  have  hung  heavy  on  hand. 
Moreover  the  kitchen  fire  was  low,  and  the  iron 


THE   WEDDING-DRESS.  183 

itself  not  easily  to  be  found,  having  been  used  of 
late  mainly  for  keeping  the  scullery  door  open. 

Pen  too  was  not  a  great  adept  at  the  art, 
not  having  had  much  experience  in  the  higher 
branches,  and  it  made  her  nervous  Mr.  Mangles 
looking  on  and  offering  advice  between  the  puffs 
of  his  pipe ;  as  one  of  his  numerous  daughters 
having  been  a  clear-starcher  and  getter  up  of  fine 
things,  he  was  well  acquainted  with  the  tricks  of 
the  trade. 

Pen  was  contemplating  retiring  upstairs  to  be 
out  of  the  way  of  the  tobacco  smoke  and  advice ; 
but  Mr.  Mangles  was  so  good-natured  in  finding 
the  iron  and  getting  up  the  fire,  that  she  was  afraid 
of  hurting  his  feelings  and,  besides,  the  iron  would 
get  cold  in  the  transit  and  would  require  reheating 
at  intervals,  though  to  start  with  she  got  it  so  hot 
as  to  scorch  the  front  breadth  and  raise  a  blister 
on  her  poor,  little  thumb. 

The  ironing  would  have  been  a  very  lengthy 
business  —  indeed  I  doubt  if  it  would  have  been 
accomplished  much  before  the  hour  at  which  the 
dress  would  be  required  next  morning  —  if  Mr. 
Mangles  had  not  volunteered  to  take  a  turn  at  it. 
Not  that  Pen  was  a  helpless,  little  person  by  any 
means  or  unused  to  do  such  things  for  herself;  but 
this  evening  she  was  nervous  and  excited,  as  was 


1 84  PEN. 

not  unnatural ;  and  ironing  is  a  thing  that  should 
be  done  calmly,  as  indeed  most  things  should ; 
and  scorching  and  blisters  were  the  consequence, 
and  very  bright  eyes,  and  a  hot  patch  on  either 
cheek,  and  breath  coming  in  a  panting,  difficult 
way  as  if  the  next  breath  would  be  a  sob ;  so,  when 
next  the  iron  wanted  heating,  Mr.  Mangles,  who 
had  been  taking  in  the  situation  out  of  what  he 
called  the  tail  of  his  eye,  kept  possession  of  it,  and 
gently  elbowed  Pen  out  of  the  way,  and  turned  up 
his  shirt-sleeves  and  pushed  his  hat  to  the  back  of 
his  head,  and  set  to,  as  if,  like  his  accomplished 
daughter,  he  had  been  brought  up  to  be  clear- 
starcher  and  getter  up  of  fine  things  to  the  nobility 
and  gentry. 

And  so  Pen's  wedding-dress  was  ironed  by  a 
snuffy  old  broker's  man  —  and  not  a  bad  job 
either,  he  declared  with  honest  pride,  as  he  wiped 
his  forehead  with  his  spotted,  red  pocket-handker- 
chief, and  surveyed  his  work  lying  on  the  blanket 
before  him. 

"It  ain't  the  fust  time  as  I've  tried  my  'and  at 
it  when  my  gal  had  a  'eavy  job  on,  and  Ameliar, 
she  says,  as  is  fond  of  her  jokes,  '  I  '11  take  you  on 
reg'lar  when  I  'm  short  of  'ands,'  says  she." 

The  only  thing  to  which  Pen  demurred  was  Mr. 
Mangles'  habit  of  spitting  on  the  iron  every  time  it 


THE  WEDDING-DRESS.  185 

was  reheated ;  but  that  he  assured  her  was  quite 
de  rigueur,  and  in  no  way  to  be  dispensed  with  or 
superseded  by  any  more  elegant  way  of  testing  the 
heat  of  the  iron. 

There  must  have  been  something  suggestive  of 
weddings  and  bridal  doings  about  that  little  mus- 
lin frock,  simple  as  it  was ;  for,  somehow,  Mr. 
Mangles'  conversation  drifted  in  that  direction  — 
not  that  he  had  the  very  vaguest  suspicion  that  he 
was  exercising  his  skill  on  a  wedding-dress;  he 
would  no  more  have  thought  of  such  a  thing  in 
connection  with  little  Pen  than  he  would  with  a 
baby  in  arms  —  Pen,  in  her  childish,  black  frock 
and  hair  that  had  escaped  from  the  pins  that  fas- 
tened it  in  a  coil  at  the  back  of  her  head,  and  fell, 
first  of  all,  in  heavy  plaits  on  her  shoulders,  and 
then  by  degrees  gradually  untwisted  itself  into  long, 
soft  strands  of  silky  fineness. 

And  yet  the  talk  was  of  weddings,  and  among 
them  of  this  same  Ameliar's  marriage,  the  clear- 
starcher  and  getter  up  of  fine  things,  of  whose  skill 
he  had  spoken.  "  And  between  you  and  me, 
Missy,  I  believe  it  were  more  than  'arf  the  name 
that  done  it.  She  could  n't  abide  the  name  of 
Mangles,  though  she  might  have  'ad  a  worser  to 
my  thinkin' ;  but  washin'  bein'  'er  trade,  as  the 
sayin'  is,  folks  was  fond  of  jokin'  'er  about  'er  name. 


1 86  PEN. 

'  Manglin'  done  'ere,'  they  'd  say,  or  '  Turn  the 
Mangle,'  or  'Mangles  'eavy  in  'and,'  and  such  like, 
till  she  were  kinder  savage,  and  vowed  she  'd 
change  it  afore  ever  she  went  into  business  for 
'erself,  and  'ad  cards  struck  off,  and  a  notice  in 
the  parler  winder.  She  was  mighty  well  pleased 
when  she  took  up  with  a  young  feller  by  the  name 
of  Neville,  and  she  thought  it  mighty  fine,  and 
said  't  were  in  the  peerage  and  all  sorts ;  but,  bless 
yer  !  she  changed  her  mind  the  very  first  time  one 
of 'er  brothers  had  a  cold  in  his  'ead  —  Joe  were 
given  to  colds  in  the  'ead,  and  he  turned  all  'is  N's 
into  D's,  and  Neville  don't  sound  so  well  that  way 
anyhow." 

"  Did  she  marry  Mr.  Neville?  " 

"  No,  she  could  n't  never  get  over  that  cold  in 
the  'ead  of  Joe's,  and  she  married  a  man  by  the 
name  of  Smith,  which  ain't  in  the  peerage  as  I 
knows  on.  None  on  us  thought  much  on  'im,  and 
as  things  'as  turned  out,  we  was  n't  fur  wrong ;  but 
she  would  n't  listen  to  what  folks  said,  she  liked  him 
and  he  liked  'er,  and  that 's  enough  for  'em  in  a 
general  way,  as  you  '11  find  out  some  day,  Missy. 
Her  mother  was  terrible  set  against  'im,  and  she 
talked  and  she  talked,  but  lor !  as  I  tell  her,  she 
might  quite  as  well  'ave  'eld  'er  tongue,  but  women 
can't  never  learn  to  save  their  breath,  and  they 


THE   WEDDING-DRESS.  l8/ 

never  seems  to  remember  neither  as  they  was  just 
such  another  theirselves  when  they  was  young. 
So  the  missus  just  clacketed  away  from  morning 
till  night,  and  Ameliar  she  listened,  but  I  knew  by 
the  look  in  her  eye  as  it  were  n't  a  bit  of  good. 
So  I  were  n't  so  much  surprised  when  she  come  to 
me  one  night,  after  the  missus  was  abed,  and  I 
smokin'  my  pipe  as  I  might  be  now,  and  she  says, 
quite  quiet  like,  '  Dad,'  says  she  (they  called  me 
'  Dad  '  when  they  was  kids) ,  '  me  and  Fred 's  go- 
ing to  be  married  to-morrow  morning ;  we  Ve  been 
called  at  the  church  '  (she  knew  as  't  were  safe 
seeing  we  was  Wesleyans  when  we  was  anything, 
and  never  went  near  the  church),  '  and  he  Ve  took 
rooms  for  us  in  John  Street.'  '  Well,'  says  I,  trying 
to  speak  indifferent  like,  as  if  I  did  n't  care  a  snap, 
though  she  was  my  youngest  and  a  pretty  little 
piece,  though  I  say  it  as  should  n't,  and  young  too 
to  think  of  marryin'  right  away  from  me  and  her 
ma  —  " 

"  How  old?  "  with  breathless  interest. 

"  Why,  she  could  n't  abeen  more  'n  eighteen. 
'  Well,'  says  I,  '  you  knows  what  your  ma  thinks  on 
it.'  '  Yes,'  she  says,  '  time  I  knew  that,  as  she 
ain't  talked  of  nothing  else  for  the  last  six  months.' 
'  And  I  quite  agrees  with  'er,'  says  I.  '  No,  you 
don't,'  she  says,  the  little,  impident  hussy  !  coming 


1 88  PEN. 

and  kneelin'  down  and  takin'  my  pipe  right  out  of 
my  mouth,  '  no,  you  don't,'  she  says,  '  and  you  're 
just  a-goin'  to  wish  me  joy ;  and  say,  God  bless  yer, 
my  dear.'  " 

There  was  a  mist  gathering  in  the  old  man's 
eyes,  at  the  memory  of  the  young  daughter, 
changed  many  years  since  into  a  hard,  toil-worn 
woman,  with  a  worthless,  idle  husband  to  slave 
for,  and  an  answering  mist  rose  in  Pen's.  She  was 
standing  with  the  ironed  dress  laid  over  her  arms, 
to  carry  it  up  without  crumpling,  and  her  hair  was 
all  in  a  tangled  silken  mass  about  her  neck  and 
shoulders,  and  the  old  man  was  raking  out  the 
fire. 

He  was  full  of  those  old  times  of  which  he  had 
been  talking,  and  he  hardly  noticed  that  Pen,  the 
child  as  he  called  her  in  his  mind,  was  lingering 
still. 

"  Good-night,  Mr.  Mangles,"  she  said,  "  and 
thank  you."  And  then,  with  a  sudden  impulse, 
coming  nearer  the  old  man,  she  added,  "  Will  you 
say  it  to  me  too,  as  you  did  to  your  daughter, 
'  God  bless  you,  my  dear '  ?  " 

"  Ay,  ay !  to  be  sure  I  will,  with  all  my  heart. 
God  bless  yer,  my  dear !  " 

& 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE    BRIDEGROOM. 

"VT  7E  agreed,  I  think,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
*  *  last  chapter,  that  the  bridal  dress  is  a 
subject  of  engrossing  interest  to  brides  of  all  de- 
grees and  in  all  circumstances ;  but  I  am  inclined 
to  go  further  than  that,  and  to  maintain  that  the 
costume  of  the  bridegroom  is  not  altogether  such 
a  matter  of  indifference  to  him  as  he  would  wish  it 
to  be  supposed. 

Personal  vanity  had  never  been  one  of  Sandy's 
besetting  sins,  for  obvious  reasons,  perhaps  unkind 
spectators  might  declare  :  but  I  do  not  think  that 
vanity  is,  as  a  rule,  at  all  in  proportion  to  the  per- 
sonal gifts  that  might  justify  it,  but  rather  in  the 
reverse  ratio,  and  many  a  man  with  less  personal 
attractions  than  Sandy  has  fancied  himself  an 
Apollo.  Do  not  imagine  from  this  that  I  am  going 
to  invest  Sandy  with  all  sorts  of  hitherto  unmen- 
tioned  gifts  and  graces,  as  is  the  manner  of  many 
writers  of  the  present  day,  who  introduce  their 
heroes  as  ugly  to  an  almost  diabolical  degree,  and 


1 90  PEN. 

their  heroines  as  little,  plain,  uninteresting  crea- 
tures, but,  by  the  middle  of  the  second  volume, 
all  this  is  changed ;  the  hero  is,  at  any  rate,  a 
Hercules  of  strength,  at  least  a  head  and  shoulders 
taller  than  any  one  else  in  the  book,  has  noble 
features  and  a  commanding  presence,  and  fine 
lines  about  his  well- cut  mouth;  while  the  hero- 
ine, it  appears,  has  beautiful  eyes  and  a  wealth  of 
golden  hair,  and  a  milk-white  skin  and  a  graceful 
figure,  which  in  ordinary  life  would  go  far  to  make 
her  a  very  striking  individual,  and  which  surely 
must  have  been  apparent  when  she  was  first  in- 
troduced to  us  as  dowdy  and  plain. 

It  is  certainly  rather  a  temptation  to  make  the 
best  of  Sandy  at  this  juncture  of  my  story ;  it  would 
be  so  much  more  interesting  if  I  could  make  him 
a  few  years  younger  or  less  bony  and  awkward,  or 
discover  that  his  eyes  were  really  blue  instead  of 
greenish  yellow,  or  that  his  hair  was  any  color  ex- 
cept sandy  red  of  a  very  harsh  and  stubbly  quality ; 
but  truth  compels  me  to  stick  to  my  first  descrip- 
tion of  him,  and  to  represent  him  as  he  appeared 
to  himself  in  the  shop  windows  as  he  passed,  or  in 
the  huge  mirrors  by  which  upholsterers  try  to  take 
away  any  lingering  remnant  of  self-complacency  in 
the  people  who  pass  their  shops. 

Sandy  had  never  been  so  painfully  conscious  of 


THE  BRIDEGROOM.  IQI 

his  defects  as  he  was  that  day  —  indeed  he  had 
hardly  been  conscious  of  them  at  all ;  he  had  been 
profoundly  indifferent  as  to  how  he  looked  or 
what  men  and,  still  more,  women  thought  of  him, 
—  the  only  people  he  cared  about  liked  him  quite 
as  much  in  a  shabby  coat  as  in  a  new  one,  —  but 
now  he  became  sensitively  conscious  of  his  shab- 
biness  and  the  want  of  fit  in  his  clothes  and,  as 
I  have  said,  took  surveys  of  himself  in  the  shop 
windows,  with  much  dissatisfaction  and  vexation 
of  spirit.  He  looked  with  envy  at  the  young  men 
he  met  —  that  wonderfully  common  type  of  young 
man  to  be  met  with  by  hundreds  in  the  City,  each 
exactly  like  the  others,  about  five  feet  six  in  height, 
with  a  small,  neat  mustache,  closely  cropped  hair, 
fresh  complexion,  clothes  of  precisely  similar  color 
and  make,  flower  in  button-hole,  dogskin  gloves, 
neatly  rolled  umbrella  and  small  black  bag.  Talk 
of  the  difficulty  of  distinguishing  individual  sheep 
in  a  flock  !  it  can  be  nothing  to  the  attempt  to 
identify  a  young  man  in  London. 

Sandy  would  have  been  only  too  glad  to  ex- 
change his  outward  man  with  any  of  these ;  but  it 
was  quite  out  of  the  question  trying  to  alter  and 
become  like  them :  he  was  altogether  cast  in  a 
different  and  very  much  bigger  mould,  and,  after 
investing  in  a  new  tie  and  pair  of  gloves,  both  of 


192  PEN. 

which  gave  him  unutterable  dissatisfaction  and 
which  he  resolved  not  to  wear  almost  before  they 
were  paid  for  and  crushed  ruthlessly  into  his  pocket, 
he  gave  up  any  idea  of  improvement  in  his  per- 
sonal appearance  as  hopeless,  and  turned  into 
Covent  Garden  Market  to  order  a  bouquet  of 
white  flowers,  with  such  an  utter  disregard  for  ex- 
pense, that  the  young  lady  who  took  the  order 
looked  more  than  once  into  Sandy's  freckled  face 
to  see  if  it  were  a  joke,  and,  not  seeing  anything 
comic  in  his  expression,  felt  strong  suspicions  that 
he  was  a  swindler,  till  the  money  paid  in  advance 
convinced  her  of  his  honesty,  when  she  ultimately 
labelled  him  in  her  mind  as  an  American  or  a 
lunatic. 

Little  Pen's  wedding  was  not  by  any  means  what 
it  should  have  been,  but,  at  any  rate,  she  should 
have  a  bouquet  fit  for  a  royal  bride.  It  was  to  be 
delivered  at  his  lodgings  by  nine  o'clock  next  morn- 
ing without  fail ;  a  few  shillings  more  to  insure  a 
punctual  messenger  was  a  trifle,  and  the  young 
lady  was  still  more  perplexed  by  the  address,  at  a 
little  street  in  Dalston,  and  made  Sandy  repeat  it 
many  times  over  before  she  could  be  convinced 
that  it  was  not  some  mistake.  Before  leaving 
Covent  Garden  Market  he  found  his  way  to  the 
outside  part,  frequented  in  the  early  morning, 


THE   BRIDEGROOM.  193 

where  he  and  Pen  had  sat  on  the  shafts  of  the 
wagon,  —  he  with  the  dirty  child  in  his  arms,  she 
with  the  basket  of  flowers,  —  and  thought  of  the 
words  she  had  said  then,  so  simply  and  guilelessly 
—  words  which  had  lain  dormant  in  his  heart 
till  they  awoke  to  life  and  movement  the  night 
before. 

In  his  pocket  all  this  time  lay  a  document  from 
Archibald  Campbell,  by  Divine  Providence  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  Primate  of  all  England  and 
Metropolitan,  graciously  granting  his  License  and 
Faculty  for  the  marriage  of  "our  well-beloved 
in  Christ "  Alexander  Maclaren  and  Penelope 
Brand.  There  was  something  so  wonderful  and 
dreamlike  in  the  affair,  that  he  stopped  more  than 
once  as  he  passed  through  the  streets  to  feel  that 
folded  paper  in  his  inside  coat-pocket,  and  would 
have  dearly  liked  to  open  it  and  look  at  the  names 
therein  recorded,  if  he  could  have  found  a  quiet 
corner  where  he  could  do  so  unobserved. 

The  evening  was  closing  in  when  he  got  back 
to  Dalston.  It  was  only  a  little  more  than  twenty- 
four  hours  since  he  had  turned  the  corner  into 
Purton  Street,  after  his  four  months'  absence,  and 
had  heard  the  strains  of  Mr.  Mangles'  concertina 
rising  from  the  kitchen  window  of  No.  3  7  ;  but  it 
seemed  almost  as  if  it  might  be  weeks,  months, 
'3 


194  PEN- 

even  years  ago ;  he  felt  so  utterly  different,  with 
altogether  new  prospects  opening  out  before  him, 
with  new  feelings  beating  and  burning  at  his 
heart. 

He  had  still  to  give  notice  at  the  church,  and 
when  he  reached  St.  Martha's,  a  dull,  little  place 
of  worship,  built  in  the  meagre  style  of  fifty  years 
ago,  he  found  an  old  woman  just  closing  the 
church  after  an  evening  service. 

She  regarded  him  at  first  with  some  suspicion, 
perhaps  as  having  designs  on  the  almsboxes,  which 
however,  I  am  afraid,  do  not  often  contain  enough 
to  make  them  a  strong  temptation  to  burglars ; 
but  when  he  explained  his  errand,  she  became 
more  amiable,  and  allowed  him  to  look  into  the 
dark  church,  and  even  to  go  along  the  aisle  and 
stand  for  a  moment  in  front  of  the  altar,  where  he 
would  stand  so  soon  with  little  Pen.  The  only 
light  in  the  church  was  from  a  solitary  gas-jet 
burning  in  the  entrance  lobby,  which  threw  a 
gigantic  shadow  of  Sandy  in  front  of  him  as  he 
walked  up  the  church,  so  that  one  elbow  blotted 
out  the  reading-desk  and  the  other  the  pulpit,  while 
his  head  swallowed  up  the  altar  and  the  book-desk 
and  cushion  upon  it,  and  the  Ten  Commandments 
and  Lord's  Prayer  on  either  side,  and  the  deadness 
of  the  colored  window  above. 


THE   BRIDEGROOM.  195 

He  stood  for  just  a  moment  in  front  of  the  altar, 
saying  softly  to  himself,  "  For  better  for  worse,  for 
richer  for  poorer,  in  sickness  and  in  health,  to  love 
and  to  cherish  till  death  us  do  part."  And  then 
the  shrill,  cracked  voice  of  the  old  pew-opener 
sounded  down  the  church  from  the  west  door, 
with  that  want  of  reverence  that  constant  famil- 
iarity with  sacred  things  so  often  engenders,  "  I  'm 
just  a-going  to  lock  the  doors  if  you  're  agreeable 
to  come  out,"  and  Sandy  retraced  his  steps  up  the 
aisle. 

There  must  have  been  a  lingering  look  of  awe 
on  Sandy's  face,  a  little  remnant  of  the  brightness 
which  does  not  fade  immediately  from  the  face 
of  one  who  has  been  in  the  holy  mount,  and  which 
is  noticeable  till  he  puts  on  the  veil  of  conven- 
tionality, for  the  woman  peered  up  at  him  with 
her  weak,  old  eyes. 

"  It 's  a  niceish  kind  of  church,  ain't  it  ?  since  the 
pews  was  all  repainted.  If  it  weren't  so  terrible 
draughty  of  a  winter,  as  my  legs  won't  stand  an- 
other such.  Yes,  sure  !  I  won't  forget  —  thankye 
kindly,  sir,  and  many  of  'em.  I  'm  just  a-going  to 
Mr.  Roach  with  the  key ;  he  's  the  clerk,  sir,  and 
I  '11  tell  him  at  'arf-past  nine  punkshal.  Beggin' 
your  parding,  sir,  maybe  it 's  your  daughter  now  as 
is  going  to  be  married?  Make  so  bold,  'avin' 


196  PEN. 

children  of  my  own  and  knowin'  what  a  parient's 
feelings  is.     Good-night  and  thankye,  sir." 

He  had  made  up  his  mind  not  to  go  to  No.  37 
again  that  day,  so  he  sent  a  note  to  Pen  to  say  that 
he  would  come  at  nine  next  morning,  and  got  a 
little  boy  to  take  it,  while  he  stood  at  the  corner 
of  the  street  and  watched  him  to  make  sure  that 
it  was  delivered.  He  saw  Mr.  Mangles  open  the 
door  and  take  the  letter  in,  and  then  he  passed 
once  or  twice  in  front  of  the  house,  where  the  only» 
light  was  in  the  kitchen  window,  the  blind  of  which, 
however,  prevented  him  from  seeing  the  ironing 
going  on  within.  His  conclusion  was  that  Pen 
was  up  in  Tre's  room  at  the  back  of  the  house,  and 
even  the  most  sentimental  of  lovers  would  hardly 
care  to  spend  much  time  gazing  at  a  blind,  behind 
which  the  man  in  possession  is  smoking  his  pipe ; 
and  Sandy  was  conscious  that  he  was  tired,  and 
that  some  supper  would  not  come  amiss. 

Mrs.  Jones's  niece  had  nothing  to  complain  of 
that  night  —  indeed  she  quite  regretted  having 
"  spoken  short  to  the  gentleman,"  and  was  afraid 
that  it  might  be  due  to  this  his  giving  notice  to 
leave  the  apartments,  "  though  he  spoke  very 
nice,  and  said  he  would  give  a  month's  rent,  as  he 
had  n't  given  proper  notice,  which  was  'andsome, 
being  a  weekly  lodger.  He  said  as  how  he  were 


THE   BRIDEGROOM.  197 

leaving  town  next  day  on  business,  and  his  compli- 
ments to  Mrs.  Jones,  and  he  should  remember  how 
comfortable  her  rooms  was,  and  recommend  'em 
to  all  his  friends,  and  he  give  me  a  old  ring  as  'ad 
been  his  mother's,  he  says,  with  some  pearls  and 
some  'air  in  it,  and  he  spoke  so  pleasant-like  that 
really  if  he  'd  been  a-going  to  stay  on  a  bit  longer 
and  aunt  'ad  n't  been  comin'  'ome  just  yet," —  and 
here  she  bridled  and  patted  the  fringe  on  her  fore- 
head into  more  becoming  confusion  —  "  there  's  no 
knowing  what  might  have  'appened  !  Though  he 
ain't  what  you  'd  call  good-lookin',  still  he  's  quite 
the  gentleman  and  no  mistake." 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THERE  'S    MANY    A    SLIP. 

IT  was  a  lovely  morning,  even  in  London,  even 
in  Dalston,  and  the  old  proverb  came  into 
Sandy's  head  as  he  saw  the  sun  on  his  blind  when 
he  woke  in  the  morning  —  Happy  is  the  bride  that 
the  sun  shines  on  —  and  he  smiled  at  the  thought 
of  what  a  child- bride  his  was,  and  resolved  with  all 
his  heart  that  the  sun  should  shine  on  little  Pen,  as 
far  as  he  could  influence  it,  all  her  life  through,  as 
well  as  on  her  wedding-day. 

He  managed  to  control  his  impatience  till  close 
upon  nine  o'clock,  and  then  got  into  a  fever  at  the 
flowers  not  arriving  before  the  hour  he  had  ordered 
them,  blaming  himself  for  idiotic  stupidity  for  not 
having  named  an  earlier  hour  for  their  delivery. 
He  looked  at  his  watch  twenty  times  in  a  minute, 
he  compared  it  with  the  kitchen  clock,  he  leaned 
out  of  window  to  look  down  the  street,  he  went  to 
the  corner  to  see  if  the  flowers  were  coming  and 
then  hurried  back,  with  the  conviction  that  they 
had  come  the  other  way  while  his  back  was  turned ; 


THERE  'S   MANY  A   SLIP.  199 

ultimately  he  made  up  his  mind  that  if  they  did 
not  come  by  ten  minutes  past  nine  he  would  give 
them  up  and  punish  the  deceptive  keeper  of  the 
flower-shop  with  some  dire  vengeance  to  be  in- 
vented hereafter,  and  sat  grimly  with  his  watch  in 
his  hand  till  the  hands  reached  that  time,  when 
he  went  off  in  dire  wrath  and  indignation,  and  had 
not  left  the  house  two  minutes,  before  the  boy 
arrived  in  a  hansom,  having  been  delayed  by  some 
misadventure  which  it  is  not  worth  inquiring  into 
here. 

Anyhow  Sandy  turned  into  Purton  Street  with- 
out the  flowers,  trying  to  smother  his  anger  by 
reflecting  that  no  one  would  be  disappointed  but 
himself,  as  no  one  but  he  knew  they  were 
coming. 

But  as  he  turned  the  corner  the  flowers  and 
his  anger  went  out  of  his  head  all  of  a  sudden, 
and  surprise  first,  and  then  consternation,  took 
their  place,  for  standing  in  front  of  No.  37  was 
a  well-appointed  carriage  and  a  pair  of  sleek, 
glossy  horses,  round  which  was  gathered  a  group 
of  admiring  ragamuffins  from  the  neighboring 
streets. 

The  first  impression  conveyed  to  his  mind  was 
that  it  was  one  of  Louis  Brand's  mad  freaks  of 
extravagance,  and  that  he  had  hired  the  carriage 


2OO  PEN. 

for  the  occasion ;  but  this  idea  only  lasted  for  a 
moment,  for  nowhere  in  Dalston  could  such  a  car- 
riage be  hired,  nor  such  handsome  horses,  let  alone 
the  pompous  coachman  on  the  box,  and  the  foot- 
man who"  was  conveying  a  cushion  from  the  house 
to  the  carriage  at  that  moment. 

It  was  not  the  first  time  Sandy  had  seen  that 
carriage  standing  there,  though  it  had  not  been  in 
Purton  Street  for  more  than  four  months.  There 
was  no  mistaking  Miss  Percival's  carriage. 

He  went  on  in  a  dazed  way  to  the  house,  won- 
dering by  what  fatality  she  had  come  there  on 
that  day ;  if  Louis  Brand  could  have  let  her  know 
what  was  intended,  and  she  had  come  to  protest 
against  the  marriage,  as  it  was  incredible  that  she 
could  have  come  to  give  it  the  sanction  of  her 
presence. 

The  door  was  open,  the  footman  having  re- 
turned for  something  else  after  putting  the  cush- 
ion in  the  carriage,  so  Sandy  went  in,  catching 
a  glimpse  of  Mr.  Mangles'  face  on  the  kitchen- 
stairs,  grinning  in  high  delight  and  satisfaction, 
and  making  unintelligible  signals  to  Sandy  as  he 
passed  in. 

In  the  little  parlor  a  strange  scene  met  his  view. 
The  tall,  long-coated  footman  was  just  lifting  little 
Tre,  wrapped  in  blankets,  very  carefully  to  carry 


THERE  'S   MANY  A   SLIP.  2OI 

her  out  —  lifting  her  from  no  other  place  than  the 
lap  of  Miss  Percival,  in  whose  arms  the  child  had 
been  lying.  Tre  had  been  crying,  there  were  tears 
still  in  her  big  eyes,  but  they  were  looking  up  in 
her  aunt's  face  without  the  fear  and  aversion  which 
Sandy  remembered  in  them  on  that  former  occa- 
sion when  the  monkey  had  come  to  the  window. 
Perhaps  she  was  too  weak  and  ill  to  protest, 
perhaps  there  was  a  look  of  mother  in  the  aunt's 
face,  which  surely  was  softer  and  gentler  than  of 
old. 

By  the  table  Louis  Brand  stood,  as  unkempt  and 
dilapidated-looking  as  the  day  before,  but  with  a 
certain  dignity  about  him  that  had  been  wanting 
then,  a  certain  look  of  resolution  and  purpose  that 
was  a  curious  contrast  to  the  pitiful  weakness  he 
had  displayed  yesterday. 

And  then  there  was  Pen.  Sandy  would  have 
said  that  he  saw  Pen  first  and  Pen  only  in  that 
room,  and  yet  he  had  taken  in  all  the  rest,  even  to 
the  expression  each  face  showed.  Pen  wore  a 
limp  white  muslin  frock,  and  her  face  was  nearly 
as  colorless  as  her  dress,  and  her  eyes  had  a 
strained,  terrified  look,  like  a  hunted  deer,  and 
turned  to  Sandy  as  he  came  in  with  an  appeal  in 
them,  the  memory  of  which  wrung  his  heart  for 
many  a  day  to  come.  She  made  a  movement  as 


202  PEN. 

if  she  would  have  come  to  him,  but  at  that  moment 
Miss  Percival  put  her  arm  round  the  girl's  slight 
figure. 

"  Pen,"  she  said,  and  her  voice  sounded  won- 
derfully like  the  dead  mother's,  "  it  is  your  father's 
wish  you  should  come  with  me,  and  little  Tre  will 
want  you.  Your  mother  used  to  love  me ;  won't 
you  try  to  love  me  too  for  her  sake?  " 

She  had  drawn  the  girl's  fair  head  to  her  shoul- 
der, and  the  tender  embrace  and  the  mention  of 
her  mother's  name  opened  the  floodgates  of  Pen's 
tears,  which  had  been  closed  in  her  aching  young 
heart  for  many  a  sad  day,  and  she  clung  sobbing 
there,  with  Miss  Percival's  arm  round  her  and 
Miss  Percival's  cheek  resting  on  the  soft  hair, 
while  she  whispered  comforting  words  of  love 
and  tenderness. 

It  must  have  cost  a  reserved  nature  like  Miss 
Percival's  a  great  deal  to  express  her  feelings  thus. 
It  is  a  pain  quite  incomprehensible  to  more  open, 
demonstrative  natures  for  such  an  one  to  push 
aside  the  veil,  with  which  she  is  used  to  shroud  all 
her  tenderer  feelings,  and  especially  when  the  veil 
has  been  undisturbed  for  a  lifetime.  But  in  pro- 
portion to  the  pain  so  is  the  effect  on  the  hearer ; 
the  words  painfully  uttered,  few  and  stiff  and  halt- 
ing though  they  may  be,  carry  more  weight  than 


THERE  'S   MANY  A   SLIP.  203 

endless,  honey-sweet,  glib  eloquence  from  a  more 
gushing  nature.  It  is  just  like  the  reproof  of  a 
mistress  who  hates  to  find  fault  and  who  hurts  her- 
self with  every  severe  word  she  says,  and  of  whom 
one  word  does  more  than  a  hundred  from  a  nag- 
ging mistress.  I  think  Penelope  Percival  had 
learned  as  much  in  those  four  months  of  comfort 
and  luxury  and  plenty  and  beauty  at  Highfield  as 
Penelope  Brand  had  in  poverty  and  anxiety  and 
scarcity  and  meanness  in  Purton  Street. 

Miss  Percival  was  speaking  to  Louis  Brand  now. 
"  Believe  me,"  she  said,  "  I  am  very  grateful  to 
you  for  trusting  your  children  to  me.  I  will  do 
my  best  to  be  a  mother  to  them." 

He  only  bowed  his  head  in  answer  to  this,  and 
she  went  on  :  "I  want  to  ask  your  pardon  for  my 
words  when  I  was  last  here  :  I  was  inconsiderate  — 
I  did  not  mean — " 

"It  is  of  no  consequence." 

"  I  want  you  to  understand,"  she  went  on,  and 
her  voice  trembled,  "  that  at  any  time  you  like  to 
come  and  see  the  children,  you  will  be  welcome  at 
Highfield." 

He  smiled. 

"  Most  welcome,"  she  repeated. 

"  Thank  you,"  he  answered,  "  I  do  not  think  I 
shall  be  able  to  come." 


2O4  PEN. 

"  Not  now,  perhaps,"  she  urged,  "  but  soon  you 
will  want  to  see  them." 

"  I  think  not." 

"  I  am  afraid,"  she  continued  nervously,  with  a 
hesitation  quite  unlike  her  usual  composure,  and 
with  a  glance  round  the  shabby,  little  room,  "  that 
you  are  in  difficulties.  If  you  will  allow  me  —  " 

"No,"  he  interrupted  a  little  sharply.  "I  do 
not  require  help." 

"  Louis  Brand,"  she  said,  and  she  stretched  out 
her  hand,  still  holding  Pen  with  the  other,  "will 
you  shake  hands  and  let  us  part  friends?  " 

He  smiled  again,  that  dreary  sort  of  smile,  and 
took  his  hand  lingeringly  out  of  the  pocket  of  his 
velveteen  c®at.  "  If  you  care  about  it,"  he  said. 
"Oh,  yes;  we  may  as  well  part  friends." 

He  turned  away  after  that  to  the  fireplace  and 
kept  arranging  the  spills  on  the  mantelpiece,  as  if 
the  completion  of  a  design  were  the  principal  matter 
in  hand  at  present,  while  Miss  Percival  put  a  cloak 
round  Pen,  who  seemed  quite  stupefied  and  hardly 
conscious  what  was  done  to  her,  while  Sandy  stood 
looking  on  in  a  sort  of  mazed  dream. 

"Will  you  bid  them  good-by?  "  Miss  Percival 
said ;  but  Louis  Brand  only  gave  a  motion  of  re- 
fusal with  his  hand,  and  devoted  himself  with 
closer  attention  to  that  pattern  of  stars  and  dia- 


THERE  'S   MANY  A   SLIP. 

monds  he  was  arranging  with  the  spills.  And  then 
Sandy  drew  back  in  the  passage  out  of  the  way, 
and  Miss  Percival  led  little  Pen  out,  with  never  a 
look  or  word  or  sign  to  him  who  might  have  been 
standing  at  that  very  moment  before  the  altar, 
taking  her  for  his  wedded  wife. 

When  the  sound  of  the  horses'  feet  had  died 
away,  taking  away  Pen  and  Tre,  as  it  almost 
seemed,  into  another  world,  Sandy  recovered  from 
the  torpor  into  which  he  had  fallen. 

"What  does  it  mean?"  he  asked,  laying  his 
hand  on  Louis  Brand's  shoulder  and  speaking  in  a 
thick,  hoarse  voice.  "  I  don't  understand.  How 
did  it  come  about?" 

"  I  telegraphed  to  Miss  Percival  yesterday  after- 
noon to  come  at  once." 

"  But  did  n't  you  understand  ?  " 

"Yes,  I  understood  from  what  you  said  that  I 
was  unfit  to  take  care  of  the  children  any  longer, 
and  I  quite  agreed  with  you." 

His  voice  was  quite  calm  and  steady,  but  when 
he  turned  to  face  Sandy  he  was  deadly  pale,  and 
his  face  was  working  with  an  emotion  that  was 
terrible  to  see. 

"  Look  here,  Maclaren,"  he  said,  "  let  us  have  it 
out  at  once,  for  I  don't  mean  to  mention  their 
names  again  as  long  as  I  live.  I  have  given  over 


2O6  PEN. 

the  children  to  their  aunt,  and  I  never  will  see  or 
hear  of  them  again.  It  is  done  once  for  all." 

"And  what  do  you  mean  to  do?  " 

"  Go  to  the  devil  as  fast  as  possible.  Ah,  you 
think,  I  dare  say,  that  I  was  going  that  way  fast 
enough  already,  but  I  tell  you,  as  long  as  the 
children  were  with  me  there  was  always  a  chance 
for  me.  I  have  been  going  down  hill,  but,  I  do 
believe,  it  wasn't  hopeless.  I  might  have  pulled 
up,  I  might  have  got  square  again  for  the  chil- 
dren's sake,  and  for  the  sake  of  meeting  her  again. 
I  tell  you,  Maclaren,  when  she  died  it  was  not  like 
parting  forever  as  it  is  to-day." 

"  Why  did  you  let  the  children  go,  then  ?  " 

"  Why  ?  Do  you  think  if  any  harm  had  come 
to  the  children,  through  my  fault,  I  could  have 
dared  to  meet  her?  even  if  the  angel  held  open 
the  gate  and  there  was  all  the  peace  and  happiness 
and  rest  and  beauty  they  say  there  is  up  there? 
Do  you  think  if  she  had  said  '  Where  are  my  little 
girls  ? '  and  I  could  not  answer,  it  would  be  heaven 
to  me  even  by  her  side  ?  I  tell  you,  Maclaren,  the 
worst  torments  could  not  be  so  bad  as  that,  and 
hell  fire  itself  would  have  its  drop  of  comfort,  if  I 
could  lift  up  my  eyes  and  see  her  with  the  children 
safe  and  together.  It 's  safest  and  best  and  hap- 
piest for  the  children  to  go  to  Highfield,  and  I 


THERE  'S   MANY   A   SLIP.  2O/ 

think,"  he  said  with  a  forlorn  sort  of  smile,  "  that 
the  poor  chance  of  such  a  miserable  creature  as  I 
am  keeping  straight  is  not  to  be  weighed  against 
that.  She  gave  up  a  lot  for  me.  After  all  it 's  not 
much  I  am  doing  for  her." 

"Was  there  no  other  way?"  Sandy  asked,  think- 
ing of  that  other  way  he  had  planned,  of  the  mar- 
riage license  in  his  pocket,  of  the  bridal  bouquet 
that  was  no  doubt  at  his  lodgings  'by  this  time,  of 
the  clergyman  tired  of  waiting  for  the  bridal  party 
that  would  never  come. 

"  No.  I  would  have  told  you  what  I  intended, 
but  you  had  gone  before  I  had  quite  brought  my 
mind  to  it." 

"  You  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  children." 

"  Don't  think  I  am  going  to  do  it  by  halves. 
Don't  think  I  shall  change  my  mind  and  hang  on 
to  them,  and  be  pensioned  off,  and  be  a  trouble 
and  shame. and  disgrace  to  them.  No,  I  will  never 
see  or  write  to  them,  or,  if  I  can  help  it,  hear  of 
them  again,  gentle  little  Pen  !  merry  little  Tre  ! 
They  are  as  dead  to  me  as  their  mother  is,  and  I 
will  never  see  them  again,  till,  if  such  wonderful 
grace  is  given  to  lost  souls,  I  may  see  them  with 
their  mother  across  the  great  gulf." 

Then  the  two  men  sat  silent  in  the  room  that 
contained  so  many  marks  of  the  children's  pres- 


208  PEN. 

ence,  with  Pen's  work-basket  on  the  table  and 
Tie's  doll  at  the  end  of  the  sofa.  All  the  house 
was  so  quiet,  as  if  there  might  be  death  in  it. 
Mr.  Mangles  even  swallowed  his  whistling  and 
moved  about  on  tiptoe. 

In  the  afternoon  the  broker's  men  came  in 
and  carted  off  the  furniture ;  and,  by  the  evening 
train,  two  passengers  travelled  down  to  Monkton- 
on-Sea,  one  of  them  carrying  a  bouquet  of  such 
choice  beauty,  that  many  turned  to  look  at  and 
admire  it. 

"  It  is  a  bride's  bouquet !  "  they  said,  "  he  is 
taking  it  to  a  wedding ;  "  but  they  were  wrong, 
for  he  was  taking  it  to  lay  upon  a  grave. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

YOUNG  TOM. 

LUCKHAM  DENE  was  the  house  upon  which 
Tom  Maclaren  ultimately  settled,  after  much 
painful  indecision  and  wearisome  visiting  of  eligi- 
ble freehold  properties,  and  sickening  perusings  of 
hpuse-agents'  lists  and  advertisements.  He  was  in 
that  perplexing  position  of  having  no  one  to  please 
but  himself  and  young  Tom,  having  no  ties  to  one 
place  more  than  another,  and  having  the  world 
before  him  from  which  to  select  his  place  of  resi- 
dence, and  with  no  lack  of  means  to  restrict  his 
choice.  This  is  a  truly  pitiable  condition  to  be 
placed  in,  and  frequently  ends  in  the  person  so 
circumstanced  never  settling  on  any  place  at  all, 
but  remaining  for  the  rest  of  his  life  in  furnished 
apartments. 

But  after  a  couple  of  years  of  looking  about  and 
listening  to  people's  advice,  he  declared  that  he 
would  take  whatever  place  turned  up  next,  as  any- 
thing was  better  than  further  uncertainty.  And, 
luckily  for  him,  Luckham  Dene  chanced  to  be 
M 


2IO  PEN. 

recommended  to  his  notice,  and  Luckham  Dene 
seemed  as  if  it  must  have  been  built  specially  for 
old  and  young  Tom.  It  was  a  long  white  house, 
with  plenty  of  windows,  those  on  the  ground  floor 
opening  into  a  wide  veranda,  which  ran  round  two 
sides  of  the  place,  and  which  was  covered  with 
roses  and  clematis,  such  a  pleasant  place  to  sit  and 
smoke  on  a  hot  summer  evening,  in  one  of  those 
great,  deep,  softly  cushioned  chairs,  and  to  look 
across  the  tennis  lawn  to  the  meadow,  where  the 
mild-eyed  Alderney  cows  grazed,  and  which  sloped 
gently  down  to  a  piece  of  water,  through  which  a 
lazy,  little  stream  finds  its  way,  stirring  the  long 
branches  of  the  willows  and  the  broad  lily-leaves, 
and,  after  meandering  through  meadows  and  cop- 
ses, falls  a  mile  or  so  farther  into  the  Thames. 
And  beyond  the  water  were  pastures  and  cornfields 
undulating  up  and  down,  in  a  manner  delightful  to 
eyes  that  were  accustomed  to  the  dreary,  flat  mo- 
notony of  the  country  round  Shanghai,  and  groups 
of  elm-trees,  between  which  you  could  get  a  fur- 
ther view  of  distant  blue  hills.  It  was  that  peace- 
ful bit  of  landscape  that  settled  Tom  Maclaren 
to  take  the  house,  the  quiet  and  the  greenness  of 
it ;  and  you  must  live  abroad  for  half  your  life- 
time to  fully  appreciate  this  latter  quality. 

Inside  the  house  there  were  plenty  of  rooms> 


YOUNG  TOM.  211 

small  enough  to  be  snug,  big  enough  to  be  airy. 
Billiard-room,  dining-room,  library,  drawing-room 
opening  into  conservatory.  I  seem  to  be  describ- 
ing it  just  like  those  house-agents'  lists  of  which 
Tom  got  so  weary,  and  I  shall  find  myself,  unless  I 
pull  up,  giving  the  dimensions  of  the  rooms,  and 
entering  into  details  about  the  offices,  and  speaking 
of  it  as  a  commodious  family  mansion.  There 
were  gardens  and  orchards  and  stables,  and  plenty 
of  shooting  to  be  had,  and  it  was  only  thirty  miles 
from  London,  and  there  was  a  station  not  a  mile 
off —  though,  happily  for  Tom's  peaceful  landscape, 
the  line  did  not  cross  it,  to  break  the  charm  by  a 
sudden  puff  of  smoke,  or  a  bustling,  little  train  in 
the  distance. 

It  was  the  sort  of  place  where  you  could  live 
pretty  much  as  you  liked ;  it  did  not  entail  the 
necessity  of  keeping  a  retinue  of  servants  and 
living'  in  state  ;  it  did  not  "  take  two  men  to  open 
the  door,"  a  remark  which  was  made  to  me  once 
by  an  old  lady  in  describing  her  son's  house,  and 
which,  in  the  innocence  of  my  heart,  I  took  to 
mean  the  actual  heaviness  of  the  door,  and  won- 
dered, with  carpenters  and  joiners  so  easily  to  be 
procured,  that  some  easier  means  of  egress  might 
not  be  devised,  but  I  think  I  know  now  what  she 
meant.  Certainly  the  door  at  Luckham  Dene 


212  PEN. 

could  be  opened  with  ease,  even  by  a  neat-looking 
parlor-maid.  Neither  was  a  French  cook  and 
elaborate  menu  compulsory ;  you  might  sit  down 
in  the  snug,  little  dining-room,  or  have  your  table 
spread  in  the  veranda,  and  have  a  chop,  without 
feeling  ashamed  of  yourself;  and  yet  there  was 
room - Tor  a  few  friends  if  you  asked  them  to  dinner, 
and  the  neighboring  squires  liked  Tom  Maclaren's 
little  dinners  better  than  the  solemn  feeds  which 
the  country  gentry  round  were  in  the  habit  of 
giving,  with  a  pompous  display  of  family  plate 
and  flunkeys. 

He  found  the  life  a  little  bit  dull  at  first,  while 
young  Tom  was  at  Cambridge,  till  he  had  lighted 
on  an  old  China  friend  settled  in  the  neighborhood, 
and  made  a  few  congenial  new  ones,  and  had  got  in- 
terested in  his  little  farm.  He  had  always  reckoned 
on  Sandy's  company,  but  in  this  he  was  disap- 
pointed. It  was  most  remarkable,  he  used  to  com- 
plain, that  his  brother  Sandy  should  have  been  sud- 
denly attacked  with  a  roving  mania  just  when  he 
and  young  Tom  had  come  home  from  China,  with 
a  wish  to  settle  down  and  forget  all  about  foreign 
parts.  All  the  years  they  were  out  at  Shanghai 
Sandy  stuck  to  London  like  a  limpet  to  a  rock ; 
why  !  he  had  never  been  outside  this  precious,  little 
island  till  he  came  over  to  Brindisi,  and  then  on  to 


YOUNG  TOM.  213 

Port  Said  to  meet  them,  and  he  was  in  a  perfect 
fever  to  get  back  again  all  the  time  young  Tom  was 
ill,  and  would  hardly  give  himself  time  to  recover 
at  Grindehvald,  so  anxious  was  he,  for  some  reason 
or  other,  to  get  back  to  London,  though  he  had 
resigned  his  situation  at  Jones,  Richardson  &  Co.'s 
some  time  before,  so  it  had  nothing  to  do  with 
them. 

It  had  always  been  understood  that  they  should 
have  quarters  together,  and  they  would  have  been 
company  for  one  another  while  young  Tom  was 
away.  But  though  Sandy  looked  out  comfortable 
rooms  for  his  brother  and  young  Tom  when  they 
came  up  to  London,  he  altogether  declined  to 
share  them,  and  could  only  be  persuaded  to  come 
occasionally  on  very  short  visits,  during  the  two 
years  they  were  in  London,  and  still  more  seldom 
when  they  went  down  to  Luckham  Dene. 

There  was  some  friend  of  his,  a  queer  sort  of 
fellow,  an  artist,  who  never  showed  up,  and  who,  as 
far  as  Tom  could  make  out,  was  a  disreputable  kind 
of  customer,  and  yet  he  seemed  to  have  a  sort  of 
fascination  for  Sandy,  who  was  restless  and  fidgety 
if  they  were  many  days  apart.  Tom  fancied  there 
might  be  some  daughter  or  sister  to  account 
for  Sandy's  infatuation  about  this  Louis  Brand. 
"There's  generally  a  woman  at  the  bottom  of  that 


214  PEN- 

sort  of  thing,"  he  used  to  say,  with  that  knowing 
look  with  which  people  generally  make  that  re- 
mark, as  if  they  were  the  very  first  to  do  so.  It  is 
not  such  a  very  clever  remark,  after  all,  if  you  come 
to  think  of  it.  Considering  that  there  are  but  the 
two  sexes,  and  decidedly  more  women  than  men 
in  England,  the  chances  are  very  much  in  favor  of 
a  woman  being  concerned  in  most  matters,  and  it 
does  not  require  great  acuteness  to  see  it.  But,  as 
it  turned  out,  this  Louis  Brand  did  not  seem  to 
have  any  womankind  belonging  to  him,  so  it  must 
have  been  pure  friendship  that  kept  Sandy  dancing 
attendance  on  him. 

Old  Tom  had  never  seen  him,  though  he  had 
repeatedly  begged  Sandy  to  bring  him  down  to 
Luckham  Dene,  which  invitations  had  been  always 
declined.  But  young  Tom,  in  spite  of  Sandy's 
opposition,  managed  to  get  a  sight  of  him,  and 
described  him  as  a  disreputable,  out-of-elbows 
sort  of  man,  looking  wretchedly  ill  and  misera- 
ble, and  with  nothing  attractive  or  amusing  about 
him. 

"Cognac?"  asked  old  Tom,  in  answer  to  a  sig- 
nificant movement  of  his  son. 

"  Yes,  and  worse,"  was  the  answer,  "  opium,  if 
I  'm  not  mistaken." 

And  old  Tom,  who  had  seen  enough  of  it  among 


YOUNG  TOM.  215 

the  Chinese,  shook  his  head.  "  Ah  !  then  he 's 
done  for,  poor  chap  ! " 

Tom  Maclaren  thought  his  brother  a  little  bit 
cracked  on  the  subject  of  Louis  Brand  ;  but  he 
maintained  that  Sandy  had  never  quite  got  over 
that  illness  he  had  abroad,  he  was  quite  another 
man  after  that,  and  never  seemed  to  pick-up  his 
spirit  or  have  any  life  in  him,  and  he  got  to  look 
a  lot  older  and  grayer. 

"When  we  met  him  first  at  Alexandria  he 
looked  years  younger  than  I  did ;  I  had  lost  my 
hair  and  had  had  more  than  one  touch  of  liver, 
which  ages  a  man ;  but  now,  by  Jove  !  Tom,  I 
think  I  look  the  younger  of  the  two." 

"  Younger,  sir  ?  I  should  rather  think  so  !  Why, 
Lucas  of  John's  asked  if  my  brother  was  still  up. 
They  '11  be  taking  you  for  my  son  next." 

Young  Tom  and  Sandy  were  still  very  good 
friends,  and  the  lad  tried  vainly  to  re-establish  the 
tyranny  which  he  had  begun  during  Sandy's  illness  ; 
but  there  was  a  change  somehow  which  he  could 
not  quite  make  out,  and  this  tiresome  Louis  Brand 
seemed  to  come  in  between  them,  whenever  the 
old  terms  were  likely  to  be  renewed.  By  and  by, 
when  Tom  had  had  a  term  or  two  at  Cambridge, 
and  had  plenty  of  friends,  it  did  not  matter  to  him 
so  much,  and  he  took  it  for  granted  that  Sandy 


2l6  PEN. 

would  be  off  somewhere  with  Louis  Brand,  down 
in  Dorsetshire,  in  some-out-of-the-way  fishing-vil- 
lage, or  in  Jersey,  or  the  south  of  France,  or  in 
some  village  right  away  in  the  heart  of  the  Ar- 
dennes, and  his  absences  grew  longer  and  longer, 
till  at  last  neither  old  nor  young  Tom  counted  on 
Sandy  as  any  part  of  their  every-day  life. 

And  now  ten  years  have  passed  since  that  Au- 
gust day,  when  a  bridal  bouquet  was  laid  on  Mrs. 
Brand's  grave  at  Up-Monkton  :  not  quite  ten  years, 
for  it  is  June,  and  the  grass  is  long  in  the  meadow 
beyond  the  tennis  lawn  at  Luckham  Dene,  sway- 
ing and  billowing  as  the  evening  air  passes  over  it. 
This  chapter  indeed  is  only  the  interlude  between 
the  two  acts  in  my  drama,  and  would  be  despatched 
on  the  play-bill  in  a  few  words  —  "  An  interval  of 
ten  years  has  elapsed  between  the  acts,"  and  all 
the  rest  be  left  to  the  scene- shifters ;  and  the  inci- 
dents of  those  ten  years  be  picked  up  from  the 
opening  dialogue,  and  from  the  change  in  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  actors,  So-and-So  having  a  gray 
wig,  somebody  else  wrinkles,  or  a  red  nose,  and 
look  !  the  little  tree  they  planted  has  grown  up 
above  the  actors'  heads. 

But  I  cannot  quite  leave  the  occurrences  of 
those  ten  years  to  be  gathered  by  the  reader  from 


YOUNG  TOM.  217 

the  conversation  of  young  and  old  Tom,  as  they 
sit  in  the  veranda  smoking  that  June  evening.  In 
every-day  life  people  do  not  introduce  the  events 
of  the  last  few  years  casually  into  their  ordinary 
talk ;  indeed,  they  are  apt  to  converse  more  about 
the  events  of  the  last  few  hours,  or  minutes  even, 
living,  as  we  all  do,  so  much  in  the  all-powerful 
Present. 

Neither  is  Nature  to  be  trusted  as  a  property- 
man  or  stage-manager,  to  work  all  the  outward 
signs  of  a  lapse  of  time  on  the  persons  or  scene ; 
she  will  powder  the  hair  of  one,  or  provide  a  well- 
constructed  bald  head,  or  paint  wrinkles  with  the 
heaviest  of  hare's  feet,  and  let  another  appear  in 
the  second  act  as  smooth-faced  and  dark-haired  as 
in  the  first ;  and  as  for  that  little  tree,  why,  it  is  a 
little  tree  still,  through  some  mistake  in  the  soil  or 
the  planting,  or  some  mystery  of  root  or  sap  un- 
dreamed of  in  the  philosophy  of  play-writers  or 
scene-painters. 

Old  Tom,  as  we  have  seen,  looked  distinctly 
younger,  and  as  for  young  Tom,  he  hardly  ap- 
peared sufficiently  in  the  first  act  to  impress  the 
reader  with  the  change  that  the  ten  years  have 
worked  in  him.  I  think  Mrs.  Tom  Maclaren 
must  have  been  very  charming,  for  I  cannot  be- 
lieve that  young  Tom  got  his  charm  of  manner 


2  1 8  PEN. 

from  the  Maclaren  side  of  the  family.  He  got  his 
dark  eyes  from  her  too,  and  old  Tom  thought  him 
quite  a  young  Apollo.  I  do  not  suppose  he  was 
quite  that,  though  I  do  not  fancy  that  Apollo,  in 
flannels  and  a  blazer,  would  look  very  much  above 
the  average  of  healthy,  happy,  young  Englishmen  ; 
but  Tom  was  certainly  a  good-looking,  young  fellow, 
and  had  a  taking  way  with  him  that  most  men 
liked,  and  all  girls. 

His  flirtations  used  to  give  his  father  great  un- 
easiness, and  at  times  old  Tom  would  remonstrate 
very  seriously,  but  was  always  brought  to  confusion 
by  the  tables  being  turned  on  himself,  and  similar 
accusations  laid  to  his  charge,  for,  be  it  remem- 
bered, though  we  call  him  old  Tom  by  way  of  dis- 
tinguishing between  the  two,  he  was  by  no  means 
an  old  man,  in  spite  of  his  bald  head  and  some- 
what enlarged  waistcoat ;  and  many  a  dame,  ay, 
and  damsel  too,  looked  kindly  at  the  widower, 
and  pitied  his  forlorn  condition,  and  thought  that 
young  Tom  needed  a  mother's  guidance,  and  the 
Dene  a  mistress. 

Young  Tom  declared  he  would  have  his  father 
made  a  ward  in  Chancery,  to  save  him  from  the 
designing  attentions  of  the  other  sex,  who  were 
always  trying  to  betray  his  innocence ;  but  really 
he  knew  well  enough  that  there  was  no  danger  at 


YOUNG  TOM.  219 

all  of  his  ever  having  a  stepmother,  or  perhaps  he 
would  not  have  been  so  ready  to  joke  about  it. 

But  of  late  years,  since  Tom  left  Cambridge,  his 
father  had  begun  to  wish  that  one  or  other  of  these 
flirtations  of  his  son's  should  turn  out  something 
more  serious  than  the  butterfly  fancies  that  suc- 
ceeded one  another  so  rapidly ;  that  one  of  those 
nice,  pretty  girls  who  smiled  so  sweetly  on  young 
Tom's  attentions,  should  smile  her  way  deeper  into 
his  heart,  and  reign  there,  and  come  as  young  Mrs. 
Tom  to  be  the  mistress  of  Luckham  Dene  —  only 
she  must  be  something  specially  sweet  and  good 
and  pretty  and  nice  to  be  worthy  of  young  Tom. 

This  very  June  evening,  as  young  Tom  lay  back 
in  his  chair,  with  his  cigar  pointed  almost  straight 
up  at  the  roof  of  the  veranda,  and  his  racket 
swinging  still  in  one  hand,  he  was  describing  a 
little  girl  he  had  been  playing  tennis  with  all  the 
afternoon,  till  old  Tom  began  to  consider  if  this 
might  be  the  one  or  if  it  were  only  the  fiftieth. 

Young  Tom  was  still  in  his  tennis  flannels,  and, 
in  the  almost  horizontal  position  in  which  he  lay, 
the  only  part  of  him  which  met  his  father's  eye  was 
the  soles  of  his  tennis  shoes  with  their  gray  ribbed 
surface,  from  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  judge 
the  depth  of  an  impression  produced  on  a  heart 
about  five  feet  farther  off. 


220  PEN. 

"A  jolly,  little  girl,  plays  tennis  awfully  well. 
You  should  have  seen  some  of  her  strokes.  I 
really  have  n't  seen  anything  so  pretty  as  her 
serving  for  a  long  time.  I  hope  she  '11  be  at  the 
Lesters'  on  Saturday." 

And  then  he  relapsed  into  silence,  so  unusual 
with  young  Tom  that  his  father  felt  still  more  im- 
pressed with  the  idea  that  this  was  something  more 
serious  than  former  admirations,  and  wondered 
what  was  before  his  mind's  eye  as  he  lay  with 
half-shut  eyes  looking  up  into  the  veranda. 

And  while  old  Tom  can  only  wonder,  we  can 
take  a  look  and  see  a  slight,  fair  girl  in  tennis  dress 
with  a  racket  in  her  hand.  Her  hair  has  been 
disordered  in  the  play,  and  the  heavy  plaits  have 
fallen  from  their  coil  on  to  her  shoulder  and  are 
untwisting  themselves  into  long,  soft  strands  of 
silky  fineness. 

Surely,  surely,  we  have  seen  that  little,  delicate 
face  before,  and  those  great,  clear  eyes,  only  there 
is  a  tinge  of  sweet,  healthy  color  on  the  cheeks 
and  brightness  and  laughter  in  the  eyes,  only  that 
the  tennis  dress  is  dainty  and  prettily  made  and 
more  becoming  than  a  rusty,  shabby,  black  frock, 
and  the  little  hand  grasps  a  racket  instead  of  a 
flat-iron. 

Ah  !  here  is  a  mistake  of  the  property-man  or 


YOUNG  TOM.  221 

stage-manager  with  a  vengeance.  Pen  was  fifteen 
ten  years  ago,  in  Purton  Street ;  she  ought  to  be 
five-and- twenty  now,  and  the  little  tennis-player 
cannot  be  more  than  sixteen  all  told.  That  would 
have  been  a  mistake  indeed,  but  the  little  girl  that 
young  Tom  sees  before  him,  up  there  in  the  ve- 
randa, near  the  swallow's  nest,  is  not  Pen  but 
Tre,  and  she  is  sixteen  to-morrow. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

SANDY'S  RETURN. 

IT  was  that  very  evening  that  Sandy  made  his 
appearance  at  Luckham  Dene,  walking  up 
from  the  station,  carrying  his  bag,  and  coming 
round  the  house  into  the  veranda,  as  if  it  were 
only  the  other  day  he  had  left  them,  and  not  eigh- 
teen months  before,  when  he  had  come  for  his 
usual  two  days'  visit. 

I  do  not  think  we  need  find  fault  with  Sandy's 
make-up  for  his  reappearance  on  the  scene  after 
the  ten  years'  interval.  If  anything,  I  think  Nature 
had  overdone  the  markings  of  age.  There  was  a 
considerable  sprinkling  of  gray  in  his  hair  —  Cay- 
enne pepper  and  salt  young  Tom  described  it  — 
he  was  thinner  too,  and  had  more  lines  and  marks 
in  his  face  than  time  was  altogether  accountable 
for,  and  a  sort  of  patient  look,  as  of  one  who  had 
nothing  to  expect  or  hope  for. 

There  was  the  usual  hearty  welcome  from  the 
two  Toms,  and  the  hurrying  up  of  supper,  and  the 
getting  ready  of  his  room,  and  the  getting  out  of 


SANDY'S  RETURN.  223 

some  particular  sort  of  wine,  and  the  cheerful  talk, 
and  the  two  collies  coming  up  to  rub  against  him 
and  put  silken  heads  on  his  knee.  Then  after 
supper  there  were  various  small  alterations  to  be 
shown,  "  If  you  're  not  tired,  and  it 's  not  too  dark," 
and  the  prospects  of  the  hay-making  to  be  dis- 
cussed, and  pacing  up  and  down  the  garden  walks 
and  leaning  over  the  meadow  gate,  with  the  quiet 
and  fragrance  of  the  midsummer  night  round  them, 
with  the  orange  of  the  sunset  hardly  faded  from 
the  west,  and  a  few  bright  Starrs  overnead,  and 
soft  noises  from  the  long  grass  in  front,  the  chirp  of 
the  grasshoppers  and  the  whir  of  a  cockchafer  and 
the  flutter  of  a  bird  disturbed  in  the  bushes  near. 
When  they  came  back  to  the  veranda,  the  lamp 
had  been  lighted,  round  which  the  moths  fluttered 
and  knocked,  and  young  Tom  was  flicking  with 
his  handkerchief  at  a  ghastly,  noiseless  bat,  who 
flitted  backwards  and  forwards  in  a  weird,  uncanny 
way. 

It  was  not  till  they  were  going  to  bed  that  old 
Tom  remembered  to  ask  after  Louis  Brand. 

"Well,  and  how  's  Brand?  " 

And  Sandy  answered,  "All  right,"  and  then 
added  quickly,  "  I  mean  he  died  last  week  at 
Monkton." 

"  That 's   a   good  "  —  and  then  old   Tom   be- 


224  PEN- 

thought  himself,  and  tried  to  cover  his  words  with 
a  cough ;  but  Sandy  quickly  took  up  his  remark 
and  finished  it.  "Yes,  it's  a  good  job,  poor  fel- 
low !  "  and  old  Tom  grumbled  out  some  inartic- 
ulate expressions  of  condolence  of  a  singularly 
inappropriate  description,  and  hastily  said  "  Good- 
night "  and  took  himself  off. 

"Yes!"  Sandy  repeated  to  himself  more  than 
once,  "  it  is  a  good  job  !  "  and  yet  he  felt  an  emp- 
tiness, a  want  that  belied  his  words,  an  aching 
feeling  that  his  occupation  and  interest  in  life  had 
gone,  and  that  it  would  be  a  good  job  when  his 
life  was  over  too,  since  it  had  lost  all  object  and 
purpose,  and  no  one  wanted  him. 

It  is  not  by  any  means  the  best  people  that  we 
miss  the  most,  nor  always  the  dearest  that  we  most 
mourn ;  it  is  the  cessation  of  an  engrossing  care 
that  leaves  us  with  the  greatest  sense  of  loss.  And 
during  those  ten  years  Louis  Brand  had  been 
Sandy's  care,  growing  heavier  year  by  year  —  a 
hopeless,  dreary  sort  of  business,  with  constant, 
ineffectual  attempts  to  stop  the  downhill  progress, 
and  to  rouse  him  to  some  effort  to  pull  himself 
together  and  make  a  fresh  start.  I  think  any  one 
but  Sandy  would  have  given  it  up  in  despair  long 
since  —  in  fact,  I  do  not  think  many  would  have 
taken  it  in  hand  at  all,  seeing  that  there  was  no 


SANDY'S  RETURN.  225 

obligation  of  relationship  or  bond  of  any  sort  be- 
tween them,  except  that  desultory  sort  of  friend- 
ship, the  advantages  of  which  had  been  entirely 
one-sided.  I  think  most  men  would  have  asked, 
"  Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?  "  —  this  weak,  worth- 
less, disreputable  brother  —  and  would  not  have  felt 
the  least  bit  like  Cain  when  they  asked  it.  It  was 
patent  to  the  priests  and  Levites  at  a  glance  that 
this  poor  wretch  was  mortally  wounded,  much 
more  than  half  dead,  oil  and  wine  would  be  wasted 
on  him,  it  might  even  hasten  his  end ;  it  was 
kinder  to  let  him  alone  and  pass  by  on  the  other 
side. 

But  perhaps  you  may  think  that  it  was  for  Pen's 
sake  that  Sandy  stuck  to  Louis  Brand,  and  perhaps 
you  are  right.  But  not  in  any  way  as  a  link  that 
might  bring  them  together  again  ;  for  during  those 
ten  years  her  name  was  never  once  mentioned  till 
the  very  last  day  of  Louis  Brand's  life.  He  was 
weak  enough  in  other  things,  he  was  strong  in  this 
resolute  silence ;  even  when  his  mind  was  not 
under  his  own  control,  Sandy  listened  in  vain  for 
the  sound  of  the  children's  names.  He  never 
wrote  to  them,  he  never  heard  from  them,  he  took 
elaborate  precautions  to  cut  off  any  chance  of  their 
finding  him  out ;  when  he  left  London,  he  left  no 
address,  he  would  give  no  clew  to  his  whereabouts, 
15 


226  PEN. 

he  did  not  know  whether  they  were  alive  or  dead, 
whether  they  were  happy  or  unhappy.  If  they 
ever  tried  to  find  him  it  was  in  vain;  and  that 
they  did  makj  such  efforts  Sandy  knew,  for  more 
than  once  he  saw  advertisements  in  the  papers, 
entreating  Louis  Brand  to  communicate  with  his 
daughters,  and  he  took  care  that  Louis  Brand 
should  see  these  advertisements,  but  he  made  no 
remark. 

At  any  rate,  there  were  daughters.  Little  Tre 
had  got  better,  Pen  was  still  living,  and  they  were 
free  to  try  and  find  their  father,  so  they  were  not 
in  utter  bondage. 

During  those  ten  years  Sandy  had  had  plenty 
of  time  to  think  over  those  two  days  which  had 
begun,  or  at  any  rate  developed  his  romance  so 
suddenly,  and  still  more  suddenly  closed  it;  but 
he  never  altered -in  the  feeling  that  had  forced  it- 
self on  his  unwilling  heart  as  he  stood  at  the  door 
of  the  little  parlor  in  Purton  Street,  a  silent  but 
terribly  interested  spectator  of  the  scene  taking 
place  there.  It  was  quite  right,  it  was  a  thousand 
times  better  for  little  Pen,  it  was  altogether  a  des- 
perate expedient  that  he  had  devised,  not  to  be 
thought  of  if  any  other  way  offered.  Great  as  his 
love  for  her  might  be  and  was,  he  could  not  pro- 
vide against  all  the  deadly  risks  that  might  have 


SANDY'S  RETURN.  227 

assailed  her  happiness  in  after  years.  She  was 
such  a  child,  young  even  for  her  years ;  as  time 
went  on  memory  painted  her  to  him  as  almost 
more  childish  than  she  really  was,  .and  he  used  to 
laugh  in  a  miserable  sort  of  way  at  the  ludicrous 
idea  of  marrying  such  a  baby ;  it  really  would  have 
been  quite  comic,  if  it  had  not  been  so  exquisitely 
painful,  and  he  thought  he  must  have  been  out  of 
his  mind  when  he  seriously  contemplated  such  a 
thing. 

Sometimes,  indeed,  the  remembrance  of  her 
face  came  back  to  him,  as  she  stood  that  morning 
in  her  limp  white  muslin,  and  looked  at  him  with 
great,  appealing  eyes,  that  were  not  quite  child's 
eyes,  that  spoke  of  something  stronger  than  child- 
ish grief;  but  he  drove  the  thought  away  with  self- 
contempt  at  his  own  folly  in  imagining  such  things, 
and  forced  himself  to  fancy  a  child's  sorrow  easily 
comforted  and  a  child's  mind  distracted  by  new 
scenes  and  brighter  surroundings. 

"  Why  on  earth  should  you  bother  yourself  about 
me?  "  Louis  Brand  used  to  say,  in  his  intervals  of 
compunction,  for  as  a  rule  Sandy  got  but  little 
thanks  for  the  trouble  he  took  for  his  friend,  which 
generally  was  treated  as  impertinent  interference 
and  unwarrantable  dictation.  "  Why  don't  you  go 
off  to  your  brother?  I  can  do  well  enough." 


228  PEN. 

But  Sandy  was  not  to  be  persuaded  to  leave 
him,  any  more  than  he  was  to  be  driven  away  by 
the  irritable  abuse  and  miserable  ingratitude  that 
were  the  usual  return  for  all  his  patient,  unwearying 
kindness. 

Towards  the  end,  when  mind  and  body  were 
failing  with  Louis  Brand,  Sandy  nursed  him  night 
and  day  like  a  child,  and  it  was  on  Sandy's  patient 
arm  that  Louis  Brand's  head  sunk  back  in  its  last 
sleep,  and  into  his  kind  face,  haggard  with  watch- 
ing, that  the  dying  eyes  looked  up,  with  the  sudden 
brightening  that  comes  sometimes  before  the  flame 
dies  out. 

"  Pen  !  "  he  said,  "  Tre  !  where  are  you?  Sandy, 
tell  the  children  their  mother  wants  them." 

And  then  Sandy  laid  him  gently  down,  and, 
turning  to  the  window,  drew  back  the  blind  and 
looked  out  on  the  same  scene  that  had  lain  before 
his  eyes  ten  years  before,  the  morning  after  Mrs. 
Brand's  funeral,  the  daily  miracle  of  the  sun  rising 
over  the  great  and  wide  sea,  telling  of  a  mercy  yet 
more  great  and  wide,  and  of  a  love  new  every 
morning  and  as  beautiful  as  if  never  before  had 
"God  so  loved -the  world." 

"  Leave  him  alone,"  old  Tom  said  to  his  son 
in  those  first  days  of  Sandy's  return  to  Luckham 
Dene,  when  the  young  man  fidgeted  over  the  list- 


SANDY'S  RETURN.  229 

less  depression  that  seemed  to  have  fallen  over  his 
uncle,  and  wanted  to  rouse  him  and  cheer  him  up 
and  hunt  him  out  of  the  blues.  "  Let  him  alone, 
he  's  out  of  sorts,  body  and  mind.  He  's  had  a 
benefit  with  that  friend  of  his,  though  he  won't  say 
a  word  against  him.  Give  him  plenty  of  good 
tobacco,  and  let  him  talk  when  he  's  inclined,  and 
hold  his  tongue  when  he  's  not,  and  don't  bother 
him,  and  he  '11  soon  come  round." 

And  I  think  old  Tom's  prescription  was  a  very 
sensible  one,  and  might  with  advantage  be  adopted 
in  some  cases  by  the  faculty ;  for,  I  believe,  that 
Sandy  smoked  away  a  good  deal  of  the  heart-sick- 
ness and  weariness  that  oppressed  him,  as  he  sat 
in  the  deep  chair  in  the  veranda,  with  his  long 
legs  stretched  out,  and  the  lovely  silence  lapping 
him  round  —  midsummer  silence  that  is  made  up 
of  sounds,  if  you  come  to  analyze  it  —  a  bird's 
chirp,  a  gnat's  drowsy  hum,  a  cock  crowing  in 
some  distant  farmyard,  the  trot  of  a  horse  on 
some  unseen  road,  the  pleasant  sound  of  the 
scythe  sharpened  on  the  hone,  the  clink  of  the 
hammer  in  the  village  smithy,  and  a  dozen  other 
sounds,  which  you  can  disentangle  from  what,  at 
first,  you  would  call  silence. 

I  think  the  dogs  were  a  help  to  his  recovery  too. 
Colin  and  Rob,  the  two  collies,  looked  at  him  from 


230  PEN. 

the  first  with  eyes  full  of  sympathy,  and  pushed 
soft  noses  into  his  hand,  or  pottered  about  the 
garden  paths  after  him,  and  treated  him  gently 
and  with  consideration,  instead  of  bouncing  and 
barking  and  prancing  about,  as  they  did  with 
young  Tom ;  and  Rob  had  a  way  of  coming  and 
rearing  himself  up  and  putting  his  forefeet  on  the 
arm  of  Sandy's  chair  and  looking  down  on  him 
with  wistful  eyes  that  almost  spoke  —  though  how 
should  a  dog  know  that,  if  only  he  could  have 
spoken,  he  could  have  told  something  that  would 
have  roused  Sandy  effectually  from  the  apathy  into 
which  he  was  sunk?  For  those  silken  ears  of 
Rob's  had  been  stroked  and  gently  pulled  by  no 
other  hand  than  Pen's  not  many  hours  before, 
when  she  and  young  Tom  had  been  sitting  to- 
gether under  the  cedars  at  Mrs.  Lester's  garden- 
party,  discussing  strawberries  and  cream,  and 
getting  on  so  well  together  that  old  Tom,  who 
looked  in  just  for  a  few  minutes  at  the  end,  and 
who  naturally  concluded  that  this  was  the  same 
little  girl  Tom  had  described  so  enthusiastically  a 
few  days  before,  came  away  confirmed  in  the  be- 
lief that,  after  Tom's  many  flirtations,  this  was  a 
serious  affair  at  last. 

"And,  by  Jove  !  "    he  said  to  Sandy  when  he 
got  home,  "  I  don't  wonder  at  his  taste ;  she  's  ex- 


SANDY'S  RETURN.  231 

actly  the  sort  of  girl  I  should  like  him  to  marry  if 
she  's  half  as  sweet  as  she  looks." 

But  he  did  not  mention,  and  indeed  he  did  not 
know,  that  the  name  of  this  very  suitable  wife  for 
Tom  was  Penelope  Brand. 


CHAPTER   XIX. 

GOING   COURTING. 

IT  was  three  weeks  after  Sandy  had  come  to 
Luckham  Dene,  and  he  was  pretty  well  him- 
self again,  when,  one  Sunday  afternoon,  young  Tom 
proposed  that  they  should  go  over  to  service  at 
Highfield  church,  just  the  other  side  of  Warford. 

"  It  is  a  goodish  step,"  he  said,  "  but  I  feel  as  if 
I  wanted  to  stretch  my  legs  a  bit,  and  it 's  not  too 
hot  to-day  for  a  walk,  and  we  can  go  across  the 
fields  most  of  the  way." 

The  name  of  Highfield  did  not  strike  on  San- 
dy's ear,  and,  if  it  had,  I  doubt  if  it  would  have 
awakened  any  memories  in  his  mind ;  but  Tom's 
elaborate  excuses  and  reasons  for  taking  the  walk 
attracted  his  father's  attention,  and  he  winked 
across  the  luncheon-table  at  Sandy  in  a  meaning 
manner. 

"  It 's  a  long  three  miles,"  he  said,  "  and  there 
are  half  a  dozen  churches  nearer,  and  I  don't  know 
how  it  is  you  have  grown  so  devout  all  of  a  sudden. 
Once  a  day  is  more  than  enough  church-going  in  a 


GOING  COURTING.  233 

general  way.  Why  don't  you  go  down  to  the  river 
if  you  want  a  walk?  Your  uncle  has  not  seen  that 
bit  by  the  lock,  which  to  my  mind  is  the  prettiest 
all  up  the  river." 

"  Oh,  yes,  it 's  awfully  pretty ;  we  '11  go  there 
another  time ;  but  I  want  to  see  the  keeper  over 
at  Highfield  about  that  retriever  of  mine,  Shot ; 
he's  not  a  bit  the  thing." 

"  Oh,  that  keeper  you  said  was  a  regular  muff 
and  did  n't  know  a  dog  from  a  cat,  eh? " 

Young  Tom  looked  a  bit  put  out,  till  he  caught 
the  twinkle  in  his  father's  eye. 

"  Oh,  yes  !  "  he  said,  "  the  long  and  the  short  of 
it  is  I  want  to  go  up  to  the  House  and  see  how 
they  're  getting  along.  You  Ve  no  objection,  Sir?  " 

He  looked  so  honest  and  manly  and  open  as  he 
spoke,  with  just  a  little  tinge  of  red  coming  into 
his  face  and  a  touch  of  shamefacedness  in  his  ex- 
pression, that  Sandy,  who,  after  those  two  days  of 
being  an  actor,  had  resumed  his  old  part  of  spec- 
tator of  other  people's  comedies  and  tragedies,  as 
he  watched  the  little  scene  between  father  and 
son,  thought  to  himself  that  any  girl  might  wel- 
come the  wooing  of  such  a  suitor  as  this,  and  that 
it  was  no  wonder  old  Tom  beamed  across  the  cold 
lamb  and  salad,  with  quite  the  expression  of  the 
heavy  father  in  the  play,  and  as  if  "  Bless  you,  my 


234  PEN- 

children "  might  be  his  next  remark,  instead  of 
"Pass  the  mint  sauce." 

Do  you  know,  reader,  how  old  Hodge  leaning 
on  the  pigsty  gate,  in  his  Sunday  shirt-sleeves, 
smoking  his  Sunday  pipe,  watches  Joe  or  Jimmy  or 
Bob  setting  off  courting  Jessy  or  Polly  up  at  the 
farm  on  a  Sunday  afternoon?  and  how  sheepish 
the  young  fellow  looks  as  he  fastens  a  bit  of  sweet- 
william  and  southernwood  in  his  button-hole  and 
cocks  his  hat  a  little  on  one  side,  over  his  well- 
greased  locks,  and  sticks  his  cane  jauntily  under 
his  arm?  Old  Hodge  grins  from  ear  to  ear  and 
there  is  a  warm  feeling  in  his  heart  for  the  lad, 
much  the  same  feeling,  though  he  could  not  put  it 
into  words,  as  an  Emperor  might  feel  when  the 
Crown  prince  goes  off  to  visit  a  foreign  court, 
where  some  suitable  royal  highness  resides,  or  as 
the  Duke  feels  shortly  before  the  "  Morning  Post  " 
announces  that  a  marriage  has  been  arranged  be- 
tween the  Marquis  of  Something  and  Lady  So  and 
So,  though  Hodge's  feeling  may  be  accounted 
purer,  being  uninfluenced  by  state  or  public  policy 
or,  as  a  general  rule,  by  any  considerations  of 
prudence  or  suitability. 

Old  Tom  may  be  considered  as  a  cut  between 
the  Emperor  and  Hodge ;  he  was  not  in  his  shirt- 
sleeves, though  he  had  taken  off  his  Sunday,  go-to- 


GOING  COURTING.  235 

meeting  coat  with  much  satisfaction,  and  put  on  a 
loose  shooting-coat  in  preparation  for  a  dozy  after- 
noon in  the  veranda,  and  I  would  not  undertake 
to  say  that,  at  some  period  of  the  day,  he  would 
not  visit  his  pigsties  and  bestow  some  consider- 
ation on  his  sleek,  young  porkers ;  but,  when 
Sandy  and  young  Tom  set  out  on  their  walk,  he 
had  not  yet  betaken  himself  to  the  farmyard,  but 
watched  their  departure  from  a  more  fragrant 
situation,  under  the  Mare'chal  Niel  rose-tree,  from 
which  young  Tom  had  just  selected  a  half- open 
rosebud  for  his  button-hole,  in  place  of  the  sweet- 
william  and  southernwood  of  his  brothers  starting 
on  a  similar  quest.  Tom's  face  was  not  shiny  with 
soap-and-water  like  Joe's,  nor  his  hair  so  well 
oiled,  but  he  had  that  fresh,  pleasant,  well-turned- 
out  look  that  young  Englishmen  have,  the  sort  of 
look  that  Sandy  had  envied  so  much  one  after- 
noon, ten  years  before,  when  he  had  gone  to  get  a 
marriage  license  and  a  bridal  bouquet. 

"I'm  glad  you're  going,"  old  Tom  said  to 
Sandy  while  young  Tom  was  giving  a  final  brush 
to  his  hat  before  starting.  "  I  should  like  to  have 
your  opinion  of  the  girl.  To  my  mind,  she 's  the 
nicest  girl  I  've  seen  for  a  long  time." 

So  Sandy  and  Tom  set  out  on  their  walk,  and 
though  Tom  had  declared  that  it  was  not  hot  and 


236  PEN. 

that  most  of  the  way  lay  across  fields,  there  was 
enough  dusty  road  and  sunny  paths  across  corn- 
fields, where  the  hot  air  shook  and  quivered  above 
the  yellowing  grain  and  scarlet  poppies,  and 
through  broad  meadows,  still  showing  the  mark 
of  the  scythe  and  the  wheel-tracks  of  the  wag- 
ons that  had  carried  off  the  hay  a  week  ago,  to 
make  them  glad  to  turn  into  the  beech-wood, 
through  which  the  path  leads  down  to  Highfield 
church. 

"  The  bells  have  n't  begun  yet,"  said  Tom,  "  so 
we  .can  take  it  easy,"  and  he  began  flicking  the 
dust  off  his  boots,  while  Sandy  sat  down  on  a 
stump  to  rest  and  cool.  There  was  a  pretty,  little 
peep  from  where  he  sat  of  the  church  and  church- 
yard, a  brick  tower  covered  with  a  wealth  of  glossy 
ivy  and  a  large  porch,  on  the  tiles  of  which  were 
soft  colorings  of  moss  and  lichen  and  shadows  from 
the  big  yew-tree.  The  churchyard  was  grassy  and 
green,  not  trimly  kept  like  a  garden  like  the  one 
where  Louis  Brand  sleeps  "  after  life's  fitful  fe- 
ver," but  pleasant  and  restful,  with  many  unnamed 
mounds  and  broad  elm-tree  shadows. 

Other  paths  led  through  the  beech-wood  down 
to  the  village,  and  along  these,  from  time  to  time, 
as  Sandy  sat  there  and  Tom  leant  against  the 
smooth  stem  of  the  beech-tree  near,  various  groups 


GOING  COURTING.  237 

passed  on  their  way  to  the  church  or  village,  old 
men  in  the  green  smocks  fast  becoming  extinct 
among  the  English  peasantry,  except  in  very  re- 
mote regions ;  children  in  smart  hats,  whose  par- 
ents without  regard  for  consequences  had  provided 
black-currant  pudding  for  dinner;  neat,  little 
friendly  girls,  with  demure  unconsciousness  of 
the  troop  of  lads  coming  up  behind ;  one  or 
two  examples  of  the  Joe  and  Jessy  genus,  sheepish 
and  red-faced,  walking  out  of  step  and  silent ;  and 
then  Sandy  became  aware  that  Tom  had  roused 
himself  into  a  position  of  expectancy,  and  was 
settling  his  collar,  which  is  very  generally  the  part 
affected  by  excitement  or  agitation,  and  was  look- 
ing up  the  mossy  path,  down  which  was  coming, 
between  the  smooth  gray  trunks  of  the  beech-trees, 
and  with  the  soft  lights  and  shadows  from  the  foli- 
age overhead  dappling  her  white  dress,  a  tall  girlish 
figure. 

All  in  white  !  There  was  something  that  struck 
Sandy  as  beautiful  and  appropriate  in  Tom's  lady- 
love coming  in  such  simple  purity  and  sweet  un- 
consciousness along  the  woodland  path  to  where 
her  young  lover  waited  at  the  junction  of  the  paths. 
It  was  a  happy  omen  too,  Sandy  thought,  that  just 
at  that  very  moment  the  sweet,  mellow  old  bells 
rang  out  from  the  church  below,  the  bells  that  per- 


238  PEN. 

haps  before  very  long  might  ring  a  wedding-peal 
for  the  two  that  were  meeting  now  in  the  beech- 
wood,  he  with  a  glad  empressement  that  Sandy  felt 
must  be  very  winning,  she  with  a  certain  serious 
composure  and  quiet  self-possession  that  struck 
Sandy  as  not  quite  what  he  expected ;  but  then 
what  experience  had  he  in  the  manners  of  young 
ladies  used  to  the  ways  of  society? 

Tom  had  gone  a  few  paces  up  the  path  to  meet 
her,  and  now  they  were  coming,  side  by  side,  talk- 
ing, and  Sandy  got  up  from  his  seat  on  the  stump 
and  straightened  himself  up  for  the  introduction,  a 
little  bit  stiff  in  the  back,  a  touch  of  rheumatism, 
he  told  himself.  And  then,  all  of  a  sudden,  a  pair 
of  clear,  serious  eyes  were  looking  at  him,  eyes  that 
suddenly  as  they  looked  changed  to  surprise  and 
joy  and  unspeakable  delight,  and  in  a  moment 
the  midsummer  beech-wood,  with  its  lights  and 
shadows,  and  young  Tom's  smiling  introduction, 
and  the  soft  clamor  of  the  bells,  and  the  stately 
maiden  dressed  in  white,  disappeared  and  vanished, 
and  in  its  place  was  the  dingy  landing  at  Purton 
Street,  with  its  torn  carpet  and  broken  banister, 
and  shabby,  little  Pen  with  her  rusty  frock  and  pale 
face  was  there,  and  her  hands  were  in  his  again. 
Hark  !  don't  you  hear  the  swish-swish  of  the  knife- 
cleaning  and  Mr.  Mangles'  whistling?  and  don't 


GOING  COURTING.  239 

you  see  how  the  paint  is  knocked  off  the  hand-rail 
and  that  bit  of  torn  paper  on  the  wall  ? 

He  heard  himself  saying,  "  Pen !  why,  little 
Pen  !  "  in  an  odd,  gasping  way,  and  she  answered, 
"  Sandy  !  oh  !  Sandy  !  "  in  a  dim,  far-away  voice ; 
but  then,  of  course,  a  voice  sounding  through  ten 
long  empty  years  must  needs  be  dim  and  far-away ; 
and  he  was  conscious  too  of  young  Tom,  with 
rather  an  odd,  puzzled,  and  not  over- pleased  look, 
picking  up  a  parasol  and  prayer-book  that  had 
somehow  dropped  on  the  moss ;  but  that  was  an 
odd,  incongruous  mixture  in  this  dream,  for  what 
had  young  Tom  got  to  do  with  little  Pen?  and 
how  could  moss  come  to  be  growing  so  green  and 
fresh  on  the  frowsy  landing  at  Purton  Street  ? 

It  could  only  have  been  a  couple  of  seconds 
that  the  dream  and  confusion  lasted,  and  it  was 
Tom's  voice  that  brought  him  round  and  pulled 
him  together. 

"Why,  Sandy!"  he  was  saying — for  this  dis- 
respectful nephew  had  long  thrown  aside  the  prefix 
in  addressing  his  uncle  —  "  why  !  Sandy,  I  had  no 
idea  you  and  Miss  Brand  were  old  friends." 

And  then  Sandy  let  go  of  two  little  hands  in 
pearl-gray  gloves,  that  he  was  grasping  in  a  de- 
cidedly unconventional  manner,  and  stammered 
out  something  about  having  known  her  long  ago. 


240  PEN. 

Pen  recovered  her  outward  self-possession  be- 
fore he  did,  though  after  the  rush  of  bright  color 
that  came  into  her  face  at  the  first  recognition 
she  had  turned  very  pale,  and  her  hand  shook  as 
she  took  back  her  parasol  from  Tom,  and  her  lip 
quivered  and  her  voice  was  not  quite  manageable 
as  she  said,  "  It  was  such  a  surprise  !  such  a  sur- 
prise !  "  And  then  she  added,  with  a  little  trem- 
ble in  her  voice  as  if  a  sob  were  not  far  off,  "  We 
had  better  go  into  church ;  the  bells  have  changed 
—  and  afterwards  —  you  will  come  and  see  my 
aunt,  won't  you  ?  —  and  tell  me  —  " 

And  then  she  led  the  way  down  the  path  towards 
the  church,  with  young  Tom  at  her  side,  and 
Sandy  following  in  a  dull  sort  of  dream,  hardly 
believing  that  it  could  be  real,  and  that  it  was 
really  little  Pen's  soft  skirt,  that  swept  the  path 
just  before  him,  the  moss  of  which  had  hardly 
recovered  from  the  pressure  of  her  light  foot  when 
his  crushed  it  down. 

As  they  entered  the  porch,  where  a  group  of 
hobbledehoys  waited  till  the  service  was  well  begun, 
before  they  went  clattering  in  on  hobnailed  shoes, 
as  is  the  mysterious  custom  of  their  kind,  Pen 
asked,  "  My  father?  "  and  he  showed  her  the  band 
on  his  hat,  and  she  passed  into  the  quiet  little 
church  and  led  the  way  up  to  the  Highfield  seat, 


GOING  COURTING.  241 

which,  though  it  has  been  shorn  of  its  high  sides 
and  door  and  green  curtains,  still  maintains  its 
place  in  the  chancel,  to  the  pain  and  grief  of  the 
new  vicar,  who  has  modernized  all  the  rest  of  the 
church,  and  has  a  choir  of  little,  cat-voiced  plough- 
boys  in  surplices,  who  are  much  limited  for  space 
in  consequence  of  the  Squire's  seat. 

All  around,  wherever  Sandy's  eye  rested,  were 
reminders  of  Percivals  past  and  present,  prayer- 
books  on  the  desk  bearing  the  Percival  crest  and 
motto,  tablets  on  the  walls  recording  the  names 
and  virtues  of  departed  Percivals,  one  of  whom  lay 
extended  in  marble,  with  a  substantial  angel  at  his 
head,  and  at  his  feet  a  skeleton  Death,  holding  up 
an  hour-glass  in  his  bony  hand,  while  farther  off 
a  cavalier  Percival,  clad  in  armor,  knelt  in  prayer, 
facing  a  beruffed  and  beringleted  wife,  and  with 
a  procession  of  quaint,  little  children  kneeling  be- 
hind them,  many  of  them  decapitated.  There 
were  hatchments  too,  and  a  brass  plate  under  the 
window  opposite  the  Percival  seat  made  known 
that  it  had  been  placed  there  to  the  memory  of 
Colonel  Philip  Percival,  who  departed  this  life  in 
October,  five  years  before,  which  was  the  first  inti- 
mation Sandy  had  received  of  the  death  of  the 
children's  grandfather. 

It  was  wisely  done  of  Pen  to  suggest  that  they 
16 


242  PEN. 

should  go  into  church,  though  there  was  still  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  before  the  service  began  :  they 
all  three  wanted  time  to  think  and  get  accustomed 
to  the  new  aspect  of  things.  Of  course  this  was 
most  the  case  with  Pen  herself  and  Sandy,  but  even 
Tom  had  something  to  reflect  upon  and  realize, 
and  there  was  an  odd  little,  half- rueful  twist  of  his 
mouth  under  the  mustache,  that  might  have 
amused  a  spectator  if  such  there  had  been.  He 
had  been  so  entirely  the  hero  of  the  occasion  up  to 
ten  minutes  ago  and  now  he  was  simply  nowhere ; 
and  then  it  was  a  revelation,  and  not  altogether  a 
pleasant  one,  that  this  graceful,  aristocratic-looking 
girl,  who  had  the  character  with  most  fellows 
(though  he  could  not  say  he  had  suffered  from  it) 
of  being  proud  and  a  trifle  haughty,  for  which  peo- 
ple accounted  by  talking  of  the  blue  blood  of  the 
Percivals  and  their  long  pedigree,  should  be  the 
daughter  of  that  Louis  Brand  —  well,  he  was  dead, 
poor  fellow,  so  one  could  not  say  any  ill  of  him,  but 
there  was  precious  little  good  one  could  say.  Of 
course  it  did  not  make  any  difference,  but  still  it 
wanted  thinking  over. 

And  Sandy,  too,  he  had  got  to  master  the  flood 
of  memories  that  poured  into  his  mind,  and  bid  fair 
to  drown  sense  and  reason,  and  to  set  very  plainly 
before  himself,  that  the  sweet,  graceful-looking  girl 


GOING  COURTING.  243 

sitting  next  him,  with  downcast  eyes  and  head  a 
little  bent,  was  not  by  any  means  the  same  as  little 
Pen  of  ten  years  ago.  Though  she  was  hardly 
conscious  he  had  looked  at  her  at  all  and,  when 
she  stole  a  glance  at  him  from  time  to  time,  his 
eyes  were  always  fixed  on  the  mailed  arm  grasping 
a  sword  on  the  hatchment  opposite,  he  had  taken 
in,  not  only  every  detail  of  her  face  and  figure,  but 
every  particular  of  her  dress ;  and  though  utterly 
unversed  in  millinery  and  unconscious  of  what  it 
was  that  gave  the  nameless  charm  to  her  costume, 
could  have  described,  no  doubt  in  very  clumsy 
and  masculine  language,  but  with  perfect  accuracy, 
every  fold  and  lace  and  ribbon  that  made  up  the 
whole  effect.  He  had  to  realize  that  this  was 
young  Tom's  lady-love  and  that  this  was  the  girl  of 
whom  old  Tom  had  said,  "  She  is  exactly  the  sort 
of  girl  I  should  like  him  to  marry." 


CHAPTER  XX. 

AMONG   THE   LILIES. 

I  AM  afraid  that  neither  of  the  three  occupants 
of  the  Highfield  seat  that  Sunday  afternoon 
paid  much  attention  to  the  service,  though  in  out- 
ward appearance  they  were  devout,  and  I  think 
they  would  have  made  a  poor  figure  if  they  had 
been  catechized  on  the  sermon,  though  Mr.  Barnes, 
the  Vicar,  flattered  himself  it  was  one  of  his  best, 
and  was  glad,  as  he  told  his  wife,  that  he  had  se- 
lected that  for  this  afternoon,  when  there  happened 
to  be  two  strangers  in  the  Percival  seat  who  paid 
marked  attention  to  it,  and  one  of  whom  might  — 
there  was  no  knowing  —  have  a  presentation  to  a 
valuable  living  in  his  gift  and  be  at  a  loss  to  find  an 
able  and  deserving  man  to  whom  to  offer  it. 

But  little  as  was  the  attention  Sandy  paid  to  it,  he 
was  sorry  when  it  came  to  an  end,  and  the  blessing 
had  been  given  and  the  organ,  under  the  hands  of 
the  village  schoolmistress,  poured  forth  a  jubilant 
strain,  with  one  of  the  higher  notes  ciphering 
gayly  throughout,  and  the  little  chorister  boys 


AMONG  THE  LILIES.  245 

shuffled  out,  followed  by  the  Vicar.  He  had  a 
sort  of  nervous  shrinking  from  further  conversation 
with  Pen ;  it  had  been  unmixed  joy  meeting  her 
again ;  it  was  perfect  satisfaction  to  sit  by  her 
side  and  feel  her  dress  brush  against  him  from  time 
to  time,  and  to  hear  her  voice  in  the  responses, 
and  to  be  able  to  steal  a  look  now  and  then  at  her, 
and  to  see  how  sweet  and  lovely  she  was  and  how 
like  her  mother,  and  how,  fair  and  dainty  as  she 
was,  there  were  still  the  outlines  and  hues  of  health 
about  her,  which  had  been  so  sadly  wanting  in  her 
mother ;  to  notice  how  prettily  she  was  dressed, 
simply  enough  but,  as  was  apparent,  even  to  his 
ignorant  eye,  with  a  grace  and  elegance  which  can 
only  be  arrived  at  by  good  taste  combined  with 
money. 

If  only  that  last  day  at  Purton  Street  could  be 
blotted  out  from  her  memory  and  his,  and  they 
could  go  back  to  things  as  they  were  before  then, 
when  he  was  the  old  friend  and  she  was  little  Pen, 
quite  as  much  a  child  to  him  as  Tre  was,  who  could 
rest  her  head  on  his  knee  without  embarrassment, 
and  talk  to  him  with  as  much  confidence  as  she 
could  to  her  mother,  and  far  more  than  to  her 
father.  No  doubt  she  had  forgotten  all  about  it 
or  only  remembered  it  as  a  curious,  dreadful  sort 
of  dream  in  that  feverish  time  of  trouble  and  anxi- 


246  PEN. 

ety,  or  perhaps,  indeed,  she  had  understood  it  as 
little  at  the  time  as  Louis  Brand  had  done,  who 
had  never  taken  in  the  idea  that  Sandy  proposed 
to  marry  little  Pen,  though  he  had  apparently 
listened  to  every  word  spoken  in  the  studio  that 
morning.  Was  it  the  same  with  Pen?  But  even 
for  the  sake  of  the  relief  it  would  be  to  the  embar- 
rassment of  their  future  intercourse,  Sandy  could 
not  bring  himself  to  wish  this  and  to  give  up  the 
belief,  which  he  had  hardly  consciously  acknowl- 
edged to  lurk  in  his  inmost  mind,  that  there  had 
been  an  answer  to  the  passionate  love  in  his  heart, 
a  meaning  in  the  down-dropped  eyes,  a  promise  in 
the  trembling,  little  hand. 

But  this  was  a  thought  he  had  discouraged  from 
the  first,  and  systematically  snubbed  and  mocked 
at  for  the  past  ten  years,  so  it  must  have  had  amaz- 
ing vitality,  to  raise  its  soft,  little  head  when  he  had 
done  his  best  to  smother  it,  and  to  whisper  in  its 
gentle  voice  against  all  the  conclusive  and  crushing 
arguments  brought  to  bear  on  it.  But  now,  he 
told  himself,  he  had  done  for  it  utterly.  This  new 
argument,  young  Tom  himself,  with  his  pleasant 
debonair  manner  and  good-looking  face,  was  quite 
sufficient  to  put  any  ridiculous  notion  out  of  his 
head.  Why,  he  had  only  to  look  at  Tom  to  assure 
himself  that  it  was  not  likely,  when  there  were  such 


AMONG   THE   LILIES.  247 

young  fellows  as  he  to  have,  that  a  girl,  almost  a 
child,  should  give  a  thought  to  an  ugly,  clumsy,  old 
fellow  like  him  or  even,  if  by  any  wild  improbability 
she  gave  the  thought,  that  it  would  not  have  died 
out  long  ago  and  be  a  dead  and  forgotten  thing  at 
the  end  of  ten  years. 

So,  as  he  followed  Pen  out  of  church,  he  resolved 

• 

to  ignore  that  episode  and  be  as  unconstrained  as 
if  it  had  never  been. 

"  You  must  come  and  see  my  aunt,"  Pen  said. 
"  Oh  !  of  course  you  must  come.  Tre  would  never 
forgive  me  if  I  did  not  bring  you  back.  You  will 
hardly  know  Tre,  she  has  grown  such  a  big  girl. 
We  have  so  often  fancied  your  coming,  sometimes 
one  way,  sometimes  another,  but  never  just  stand- 
ing in  the  beech-wood  path  as  we  came  to  after- 
noon service.  She  will  be  so  vexed  that  she  did 
not  come  this  afternoon,  but  she  had  a  headache 
and  Aunt  Penelope  would  not  let  her  because  the 
sun  was  hot.  When  we  were  in  London  she  used 
to  watch  for  you  by  the  hour  together  at  the  win- 
dow. She  said  she  was  quite  sure  that  some  day 
you  would  pass,  and  once,  do  you  know?  she  per- 
suaded Aunt  Penelope  to  take  us  down  to  Purton 
Street  to  try  and  find  you  and  father;  but  they 
did  not  even  remember  the  name.  Oh  !  Sandy, 
why  did  you  and  father  never  write  ?  We  wanted 


248  PEN. 

so  much  to  tell  you  that  we  were  well  and  happy 
and  how  good  Aunt  Penelope  was  to  us." 

They  went  slowly  up  the  beechwood  path  with 
young  Tom  walking  behind,  a  little  impatiently 
flicking  the  small  branches  out  of  the  way  with 
his  walking-stick.  He  was  so  unused  to  play 
second  fiddle  that  I  am  afraid  he  did  not  do  it 
very  gracefully,  but  perhaps  in  this  case  it  was  a 
particularly  difficult  part  to  read  off  at  sight. 

From  the  beech-wood,  a  gate  in  some  palings 
leads  into  Highfield  Park,  across  which  goes  a  path 
with  lime-trees  on  either  side,  all  in  honey-sweet 
flower,  and  from  this  lime-tree  walk  a  door  in  the 
old  brick  wall  with  heavy  buttresses  leads  into  the 
kitchen  garden,  into  a  buzzing  of  bees  and  a  warm 
sunshiny  smell  of  lavender  and  rosemary,  and  into 
a  temptation  to  step  aside  from  the  direct  path 
of  duty,  with  its  high  box  edging,  to  look  at  the 
scarlet  strawberries  on  the  sloping  bed  to  the  right, 
or  to  feel  the  golden  apricots  against  the  wall. 

Little  Tre  when  first  she  came  to  Highfield, 
being  unused  to  such  displays,  except  behind  shop 
windows  and  under  the  jealous  guardianship  of 
tradesmen,  used  to  think  that  "  Lead  us  not  into 
temptation  "  had  special  reference  to  that  sunny 
wall,  and  she  connected  the  next  clause,  "  Deliver 
us  from  evil,"  with  the  nettles  in  the  ditch  beyond 


AMONG  THE  LILIES.  249 

the  asparagus  bed,  into  which  once  on  a  time  she 
fell  headlong,  and  required  outward  application  of 
dock  leaves  for  the  rest  of  the  afternoon,  and 
internal  treatment  with  bread  and  hon'ey  in  the 
housekeeper's  room. 

Long  before  they  reached  the  kitchen  garden 
Sandy  had  become  quite  convinced  that  Pen  had 
forgotten  all  about  that  strange  little  episode  in 
Purton  Street ;  and  if  there  was  a  pang  of  disap- 
pointment in  his  heart  at  this  conviction,  he  was 
hardly  conscious  of  it,  so  delightful  was  it  to  hear 
her  voice  and  meet  her  eyes  seeking  his  with  the 
old  unclouded  confidence. 

He  told  her  what  he  could  of  her  father,  and 
of  his  strange  determination  not  to  see  or  hear  of 
them  again,  from  his  persuasion  that  this  separation 
was  better  for  them.  In  Sandy's  simple  words,  it 
sounded  so  great  and  noble  a  piece  of  heroism 
and  self-sacrifice,  that  the  girl's  eyes  filled  up  with 
tears. 

"But  he  did  not  know  how  we  fretted  after 
him,"  she  said,  "  and  Aunt  Penelope  was  as  anxious 
as  we  were  to  find  him.  She  has  been  so  good  to 
us,  Sandy,  so  very  good,  and  we  were  so  ungrateful 
and  disagreeable  to  her  at  first ;  but  Tre  was  ill 
such  a  long  time  and  nearly  died,  and  you  can't 
imagine  how  kind  she  was  then.  I  can't  think, 


PEN. 

looking  back  now,  how  it  was  we  disliked  her  so 
and  thought  her  so  cold  and  proud  and  unlike 
mother.  We  wrote  to  all  the  places  where  we 
thought  father  might  be  and  put  several  advertise- 
ments in  the  papers,  but  we  never  heard,  and  the 
only  comfort  was  to  think  you  were  sure  to  see 
him  sometimes,  and  be  a  friend  to  him." 

And  Sandy  said  it  was  so  and  that  he  had  seen 
him  pretty  often,  which  was  a  mild  way  of  putting 
the  fact  that  for  the  last  ten  years  he  had  hardly 
left  him  for  more  than  a  few  days  at  a  time ;  and 
he  was  glad  that  young  Tom  had  dropped  behind 
to  pick  a  particularly  tempting  strawberry,  so  that 
he  could  not  enlighten  Pen's  mind  on  the  subject. 

"Were  you  with  him  when  he  died?" 

"  Yes,  fortunately  I  was  at  Monkton.  It  was 
there  he  died.  Do  you  remember,  Pen,  that  little 
house  on  the  beach?" 

She  nodded.  "  Did  he  speak  of  us  ?  send  us 
any  message?" 

"  Yes,  the  last  words  he  said  were,  tell  the  chil- 
dren their  mother  wants  them." 

They  were  leaving  the  kitchen  garden  by  a  path 
with  a  high  clipped  yew-hedge  on  either  side, 
along  which  stood  a  stately  row  of  Madonna  lilies, 
tall  and  pure ;  and  to  Sandy's  mind  Pen  in  her 
white  dress  was  just  such  another.  She  was  think- 


AMONG  THE   LILIES.  251 

ing  of  her  father,  and  Sandy  knew,  as  well  as  if  he 
could  have  seen  into  her  mind,  that  the  kind 
magic  of  death  and  distance  had  conjured  away  all 
that  was  sad  and  painful  and  bitter  in  the  memory, 
covering  with  a  gentle  hand  his  faults  and  failings, 
and  throwing  soft  light  on  all  his  good  points ; 
and  Sandy  felt  that  his  ten  years'  patience  was 
more  than  repaid  since  it  had  given  back  a  loving 
memory  of  her  father  to  little  Pen. 

That  path  led  them  out  on  to  the  broad,  sun- 
shiny lawn,  and  there  under  a  large  tulip-tree  was 
the  tea-table  spread  and  Miss  Percival  sitting  in  a 
low  chair,  with  Tre  on  the  grass  at  her  feet,  with  a 
fox  terrier,  who  was  being  taught  some  trick  with 
the  bribe  of  a  piece  of  cake,  which,  as  he  fully 
understood  that  he  would  get  it  if  the  trick  were 
performed  or  not,  was  not  a  sufficient  goad  to  urge 
him  to  perfection. 

"  Tre  ! " 

At  the  sound  of  her  sister's  voice,  the  girl  knelt 
up  and  looked  at  the  comers,  shading  her  eyes 
from  the  sun,  a  beam  of  which  fell  through  the 
foliage  on  her  uncovered  head.  For  a  moment 
she  knelt  there,  looking,  looking  at  the  tall,  gaunt, 
loose-limbed  man  at  Pen's  side,  and  then  she 
gave  a  cry  and  sprang  to  her  feet,  and  the  next 
moment  she  had  run  across  the  sunny  turf  and  had 


252  PEN. 

sprung  right  into  Sandy's  arms,  with  her  hands 
clasped  behind  his  neck,  and  kissed  him,  just  as 
she  used  to  do  ten  years  before. 

"  Upon  my  word  !  I  think  we  have  had  pretty 
near  enough  of  this  !  "  said  young  Tom  to  himself, 
as  he  came  out  of  the  yew-tree  walk,  with  a  very 
unusually  ill-tempered  expression. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

LITTLE   MISS   TRE. 

"     A     NOTE   for  you,  Sir,  and  the  young  lady 
-£~^-    says,  please,  may  she  speak  to  you  for  a 
minute?" 

Followed  almost  immediately  by  the  clatter  of  a 
pony's  feet  on  the  gravel  path  outside  the  break- 
fast-room window,  and  the  apparition  of  a  chestnut 
pony  and  a  blue- habited  rider,  looking  half  shyly, 
half  audaciously  into  the  room,  at  which  Sandy  and 
old  and  young  Tom  sat  at  their  not  too  early  break- 
fast. A  very  sweet,  smiling,  little  face  it  was,  that 
evidently  knew  itself  to  be  welcome  everywhere,  a 
face  that  had  grown  up  in  the  sunshine,  any  one 
could  see.  Aunt  Penelope's  love  and  kindness 
were  written  in  letters  of  gold  plainly  to  be  read 
on  Tre's  happy  young  face. 

"Aunt  Penelope  wants  you  to  come  to  lunch," 
she  said,  "  and  I  've  brought  the  note.  Pen  and  I 
have  so  much  to  say  to  you,  we  thought,  perhaps, 
you  would  ride  back  with  me.  Percy  is  on  the 
bay,  which  will  carry  you  nicely." 


254  PEN. 

> 

"Ride?  My  dear  child,  what  do  you  take  me 
for?  I  don't  think  I  Ve  ever  been  on  a  horse  in 
my  life  since  my  earliest  infancy,  when  I  have  a 
dim  remembrance  of  a  ride  during  which  I  was 
more  often  off  than  on." 

"  Oh  !  how  provoking  !  Pen  said  I  had  much 
better  drive  the  pony  carriage,  but  I  wanted  you 
to  see  Dick,  my  new  pony.  Good-morning,  Mr. 
Maclaren,"  this  to  young  Tom,  who  had  just  ap- 
peared behind  his  uncle  at  the  window.  "  Yes,  this 
is  Dick,  and  he  would  like  a  piece  of  sugar. 
What's  to  be  done  about  Sandy?  I  'm  afraid  to 
lose  sight  of  him,  for  fear  he  should  n't  come,  and 
I  could  n't  face  Pen  without  him,  and  he  says  he 
can't  ride.  Mayflower  is  so  quiet,  he  really  is  ! 
and  Percy  is  getting  so  fat,  the  walk  would  do  him 
a  lot  of  good." 

A  sound  of  prancing  and  kicking  about  on  the 
gravel,  round  the  corner  of  the  house,  did  not 
give  very  convincing  evidence  of  Mayflower's 
steadiness,  or  may  perhaps  have  been  due  to 
Percy's  resentment  at  the  remark  about  his 
stoutness. 

"  I  could  run  behind,"  suggested  Sandy,  "  and 
hold  on  by  Dick's  tail.  I  suppose  he  does  not 
go  very  fast." 

"  Does  n't   he  ?     Why  !  Mayflower  could  hardly 


LITTLE   MISS   TRE.  255 

keep  up  with  him,  and  you  should  see  him  take 
a  fence !  Would  you  like  me  just  to  trot  him 
round  the  meadow  for  you  to  see  his  paces? 
Aunt  Penelope  says  she  never  saw  a  prettier 
pony,  and  she  knows  a  lot  about  horses,  you 
know." 

Sandy  did  not  know  much  about  horses,  but  he 
was  quite  sure  he  had  never  seen  a  prettier  pony 
or  rider  either ;  and  young  Tom  was  of  much  the 
same  opinion,  and  they  spent  a  considerable  time 
in  the  meadow  admiring  both. 

"  It  is  holiday  time,"  Tre  told  them ;  so  she  had 
not  to  hurry  back  to  lessons  and  could  even  spare 
time  to  visit  young  Tom's  retriever  puppies,  whose 
fat  bodies  and  broad  foolish  noses  and  light  brown 
eyes,  squinting  with  youthfulness,  and  sudden  man- 
ner of  sitting  down  on  all  occasions  went  straight 
to  her  heart. 

Old  Tom  had  joined  the  party  by  this  time, 
and,  allusion  having  been  made  to  Tre's  partiality 
for  small  pigs,  and  to  the  little  one  that  she  had 
nursed  at  Up-Monkton  farm,  nothing  would  satisfy 
him  but  that  he  must  display  the  treasures  of  his 
sty  to  little  Miss  Tre ;  and  he  found  her  a  most 
congenial  companion  in  the  farmyard,  without 
the  usual  conventional,  young  lady-like  disgust  to 
the  nasty,  dirty  creatures,  but  with  an  appreciation 


256  PEN. 

of  their  good  points  that  you  hardly  ever  find  in 
the  female  sex,  and  a  respect  for  their  mental 
qualities  that  is  rare  in  either. 

Old  Tom  fell  quite  a  captive  to  Tre's  fascina- 
tions, and  he  told  Sandy  that  if  the  elder  sister 
were  the  same  style,  he  was  not  a  bit  surprised  at 
young  Tom  having  taken  a  fancy  to  her,  nor  could 
Sandy  be  surprised  either. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Tre  much  enjoyed  her- 
self in  this  bachelor  establishment,  walking  about, 
with  one  hand  slipped  under  Sandy's  arm,  while 
with  the  other  she  held  up  her  pretty  riding- 
skirt  ;  and  with  old  Tom  on  the  other  side,  hold- 
ing forth  about  pigs,  and  asking  her  advice  as  if 
she  were  an  experienced  farmer  and  had  a  reason, 
beyond  the  aesthetical,  for  preferring  black  pigs 
to  white,  and  short  noses  to  long,  and  curly  tails 
to  straight ;  and  with  young  Tom  bringing  up  the 
rear  and  joining  in  the  conversation  whenever 
she  deigned  to  throw  him  a  word  or  two  over  her 
shoulder. 

I  am  afraid  there  was  a  zest  given  to  Tre's  en- 
joyment by  the  consciousness  that  Aunt  Penelope 
might  not  quite  approve  of  this  visit  at  all,  still 
less  of  its  being  so  prolonged,  and  that  even  Pen 
might  look  a  little  grave  and  say  that  Tre  must 
remember  she  was  nearly  grown  up,  and  that 


LITTLE  MISS   TRE.  257 

grown-up  young  ladies  do  not  pay  calls  on  gentle- 
men all  by  themselves.  But,  of  course,  Sandy 
being  there  made  all  the  difference,  and  old  Mr. 
Maclaren  (you  see,  our  adjective  for  him  appeared 
quite  appropriate  to  the  eyes  of  sixteen)  was  so 
nice  and  good-tempered,  and  she  had  no  idea,  not 
the  least !  that  young  Mr.  Maclaren  had  gone  off 
to  pick  strawberries  for  her  till  they  got  back  to 
the  veranda,  and  found  it  spread  out  so  tempting 
and  cool,  with  such  great  scarlet  monsters,  (much 
bigger  than  ours,  Pen,)  with  cream  and  sponge 
cake  and  a  great  block  of  ice  and  lemonade,  and 
it  would  have  seemed  so  ungrateful  to  come  away, 
when  they  had  taken  so  much  trouble,  and  besides 
she  had  had  breakfast  early  and  quite  a  long  ride, 
and  it  was  hot  and  she  was  really  a  little  tired. 
Such  a  lot  of  excuses  were  poured  out  to  a  rather 
reproachful  Pen  by  the  delinquent,  as  she  changed 
her  dress  hurriedly,  having  appeared  only  just  in 
time  to  do  so  before  lunch. 

"And,  Pen,  do  you  think  Aunt  Penelope  will 
mind,  but  I  asked  old  Mr.  Maclaren  to  come  and 
see  our  pigs  this  afternoon  and  —  and  young  Mr. 
Maclaren  too?  " 

"  qh  !  Tre." 

"  Yes,  of  course  I  ought  not,  but  it 's  such  a  long 
way  for  Sandy  to  walk,  and  I  did  n't  know  if  we 
17 


258  PEN. 

could  drive  him  back,  and  they  said  they  should  be 
driving  this  way  and  would  come  and  fetch  him. 
What 's  the  matter,  Pen  ?  Do  you  think  Aunt 
Penelope  will  be  vexed  ?  " 

"  Oh  no  !  I  dare  say  she  won't  mind ;  but  you 
talk  as  if  Sandy  were  quite  a  feeble,  old  man." 

"  Well !  he  's  not  so  very  young,  and  Mr.  Tom 
Maclaren  said  he  was  awfully  tired  when  he  got 
back  last  night.  He  's  rheumatic  too,  and  Mr. 
Tom  would  not  let  him  sit  down  on  the  grass  when 
we  were  out  in  the  meadow.  He  says  he  has  his 
hands  full,  looking  after  the  two  old  gentlemen  and 
taking  care  of  them ;  it  is  such  fun  to  hear  him 
talk." 

But  Pen  did  not  seem  to  appreciate  the  joke  and 
she  thought  Mr.  Tom  Maclaren  was  inclined  to  be 
rather  silly  sometimes,  and  the  luncheon  bell  would 
ring  in  a  minute,  and  Tre  knew  that  Aunt  Penelope 
was  vexed  if  she  was  late.  And  yet  Pen  lingered 
till  Tre  was  ready,  so  that  they  could  go  together 
into  the  large  drawing-room,  where  Sandy  sat, 
talking  to  Aunt  Penelope. 

He  had  not  lost  the  feeling  of  amazement  and 
unreality  that  had  overwhelmed  him  when  he  first 
met  Pen  ;  and  it  seemed  almost  impossible  that  he 
should  be  sitting  now  in  the  Highfield  drawing- 
room,  with  Miss  Percival  entertaining  him,  and,  as 


LITTLE   MISS   TRE.  259 

far  as  in  her  lay,  unbending  and  being  gracious  to 
him  —  that  same  Miss  Percival  who  had  ignored 
him  with  such  utter  disdain  in  Purton  Street,  and 
had  swept  past  him  as  if  he  were  of  less  impor- 
tance than  'Liza  with  her  smutty  apron,  or  the 
umbrella-stand  in  the  passage. 

And  in  many  points  she  was  the  very  same  Miss 
Percival  —  handsome,  stately,  dignified,  not  much 
older-looking  than  then,  proud  still,  and  cold,  and 
a  trifle  hard  to  all  the  world  but  Pen  and  Tre.  It 
was  not  to  be  expected  that  because  she  took  those 
two  into  her  heart,  and  lavished  all  the  stores  of 
her  love  on  them,  she  should  take  all  the  rest  of 
the  world  besides  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  was  only  per- 
haps natural  that  she  should  be  more  reserved  and 
stiff  to  every  one  else.  Even  to  the  two  girls  her 
affection  was  not  of  a  demonstrative  nature,  they 
had  to  take  a  good  deal  of  it  on  trust,  which  is 
perhaps  the  best  plan  in  every-day  life  and  produces 
a  more  robust  and  long-lived  attachment  than  that 
of  a  more  emotional  and  caressing  character.  I  do 
not  think  the  servants  found  her  by  any  means  a 
more  easy-going  mistress,  or  with  any  less  sharp  an 
eye  for  dust  or  cobwebs,  or  more  unconscious  of 
unpunctuality  or  neglect ;  neither  did  the  friendly 
girls  find  her  more  lenient  in  the  matter  of  feathers 
in  hats  or  fringes  on  foreheads,  or  the  village  peo- 


2(50  PEN. 

pie  more  easily  to  be  moved  to  pity  and  broth,  or 
sympathy  and  flannel  petticoats,  by  their  long- 
winded  tales  of  distress. 

To  Sandy  however  she  was  unwontedly  gracious, 
and  there  was  no  denying  that,  when  Miss  Percival 
chose  to  be  gracious,  she  could  be  exceedingly 
charming ;  and  Sandy,  who  even  yet  had  not  lost 
his  shyness  and  awkwardness,  found  himself  placed 
entirely  at  his  ease,  and  not  painfully  conscious  of 
being  a  fish  out  of  water,  and  boring  his  companion 
and  himself  past  all  bearing. 

As  the  two  girls  followed  Sandy  and  Miss  Perci- 
val into  the  dining-room  to  lunch,  they  exchanged 
glances  of  delighted  surprise.  When  you  like  any 
one  very  much  indeed  and  want  every  one  else  to 
share  your  sentiments,  how  you  torment  yourself 
over  the  impression  he  or  she  is  likely  to  produce ; 
the  more  you  like  him,  the  less  justice  you  do  him, 
and  the  less  confidence  you  have  in  his  not  mis- 
conducting himself  in  some  gross  and  outrageous 
way.  Of  course,  directly  the  introduction  is  over, 
you  are  ready  to  declare  that  you  always  knew  he 
would  be  liked  and  that  no  one  could  help  admir- 
ing him,  and  you  forget  all  the  misgivings  you 
felt. 

So  Pen  had  been  torturing  herself  all  the  morn- 
ing, till  she  had  arrived  at  such  a  pitch  of  nervous- 


LITTLE  MISS  TRE.  26 1 

ness,  that  she  almost  hoped  that  Sandy  would  not 
come,  knowing  how  critical  Aunt  Penelope  was  apt 
to  be,  and  not  having  any  experience  of  Sandy 
under  a  society  aspect.  He  was  so  big  and  con- 
spicuous, you  could  not  trust  to  anything  he  did 
being  overlooked  or  insignificant,  as  is  the  comfort 
about  our  shorter  brethren  ;  and  poor  Pen  literally 
shivered  at  the  bare  idea  of  Aunt  Penelope's  pince- 
nez  surveying  him  in  the  cold-blooded  way  in 
which  she  had  sometimes  seen  those  instruments  of 
torture  brought  to  bear  on  some  pretentious  or 
impertinent  upstart. 

But,  before  she  had  been  five  minutes  at  lunch, 
she  would  have  declared  with  the  greatest  assur- 
ance that  she  had  never  had  the  smallest  doubt 
that  Aunt  Penelope  would  like  Sandy,  and  that  he 
would  always  be  at  his  ease  in  any  society,  being 
such  a  thorough  gentleman  —  which  was  quite  a 
mistaken  argument  on  her  part  both  as  regards 
gentlemen  in  general  and  Sandy  in  particular,  as 
he  and  many  others  are  apt  to  feel  ill  at  ease  in 
society,  in  spite  of  birth  and  breeding. 

They  were  discussing  over  lunch  how  curious  it 
was  that  they  should  not  have  met  sooner,  not  so 
much  Sandy  and  the  two  girls,  seeing  that  his 
visits  to  Luckham  had  been  so  few  and  far  be- 
tween, but  that  it  was  only  within  the  last  few 


262  PEN. 

months  that  Miss  Percival  had  met  his  brother 
and  nephew,  and  then  neither  she  nor  the  girls 
had  connected  their  name  with  their  father's  old 
friend,  nor  had  Tom  noticed  the  coincidence  of 
Miss  Percival's  nieces  having  the  same  name  as 
the  Louis  Brand  to  whom  his  uncle  was  attached. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  in  country  society  how 
entirely  it  falls  into  circles,  having  for  a  centre 
some  town  or  church  or  rail  way- station  or  big 
gentleman's  seat.  The  circles  touch  and  some- 
times interlace,  but  still  keep  their  own  centre ; 
and  very  often  people  remain  strangers  to  those 
who  live  within  a  few  miles  of  them,  because  they 
happen  to  belong  to  different  circles.  This  was 
the  case  with  Luckham  Dene  and  Highfield  House. 
Luckham  has  Merfield  for  its  centre,  and  goes  up 
to  town  by  the  G.  W.  R.,  and  employs  the  Mer- 
field doctor  and  tradesmen,  and  is  in  the  Merfield 
rural  deanery,  and  belongs  to  the  Merfield  choral 
union,  and  points  its  chants  in  the  manner  pleasing 
to  the  musical  curate  at  Merfield,  and  sends  its 
paupers  to  the  Merfield  workhouse,  and  its  candi- 
dates to  be  confirmed  there ;  whereas  Highfield  is, 
you  know,  in  the  Ashling  deanery,  and  goes  up  by 
South  Western,  and  is  under  the  musical  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  Ashling  organist,  who  has  taken  a 
musical  degree  of  some  mysterious  nature,  which 


LITTLE   MISS   TRE.  263 

gives  him  a  right  to  despise  ignorant  humanity  for 
miles  round  ;  they  are  brought  into  the  world  and 
despatched  therefrom  under  the  superintendence 
of  Dr.  Perry  of  Ashling,  and  belong  to  the  Ashling 
Primrose  League  Habitation,  of  which,  I  need 
hardly  say,  Miss  Percival  is  a  dame,  whereas,  I 
am  afraid,  Merfield  has  its  Liberal  tendencies,  and 
belongs  to  that  unpolitical  or  unpoetical  class  de- 
scribed by  Wordsworth  — 

"  A  primrose  by  the  river's  brim 
A  yellow  primrose  was  to  him, 
And  it  was  nothing  more." 

It  was  partly  due  to  their  being  thus  in  different 
circles  that  the  Maclarens  and  Miss  Percival  had 
only  lately  become  acquainted,  and  partly  that, 
during  the  first  few  years  of  the  two  Toms'  living 
at  Luckham  Dene,  Colonel  Percival  had  been  still 
living,  but  too  much  of  an  invalid  to  allow  of  any 
society  being  kept  up,  and  after  his  death  there 
was  no  gentleman  in  the  house  to  call  on  other 
gentlemen,  which  made  a  difficulty  in  establishing 
visiting  terms,  with  a  house  like  Luckham  Dene, 
where  there  were  no  ladies. 

Pen  did  not  talk  much  at  lunch,  and  Tre's  chat- 
ter was  kept  under  restraint  by  Aunt  Penelope's 
presence ;  but,  after  lunch,  when  Miss  Percival 
went  away  to  write  some  notes,  bidding  the  girls 


264  PEN. 

show  Mr.  Maclaren  the  garden  and  greenhouses, 
there  was  plenty  of  talk,  and  "  Oh  !  Sandy,  don't 
you  remember?  "  and  "  Oh  !  Sandy,  shall  you  ever 
forget?" 

Tre  had  her  arm  through  his  directly,  and  could 
emphasize  her  memories  by  a  squeeze  of  his  arm 
or  by  pressing  her  cheek  against  his  shoulder ;  and 
Pen  on  the  other  side  might  have  done  the  same, 
if  only  she  could  have  overcome  that  stupid  feeling 
of  shyness  that  made  her  thrill  all  over  if  her  hand 
touched  his  even  by  accident. 

Neither  could  she  talk  on  like  Tre  without  em- 
barrassment, though  there  was  so  much  more  she 
could  remember  than  her  sister,  but  perhaps  that 
was  the  secret  of  it,  there  was  one  memory  that 
made  her  tongue  falter  and  the  color  rise  in 
her  cheeks  and  her  heart  beat,  and  that  one 
memory  would  keep  intruding  itself  among  the 
others,  about  which  she  might  have  talked  so 
pleasantly. 

If  Tre  fell  behind  for  a  moment  to  pick  a  flower, 
or  ran  on  to  speak  to  one  of  the  gardeners,  and 
Pen  was  left  alone  with  Sandy,  a  terror  came 
over  her  that  he  would  say  something  about 
that  last  day  at  Purton  Street,  and  she  talked  fast 
and  rather  incoherently  to  prevent  that  terrible 
silence  which  she  felt  sure  would  preface  the  sub- 


LITTLE   MISS  TRE.  265 

ject ;  and  yet,  as  the  afternoon  passed  on,  she 
began  to  wonder  if  Sandy  could  have  forgotten 
all  about  it. 

"  There  are  some  people  coming  for  tennis  this 
afternoon,"  Tre  told  him.  "  I  hope  your  nephew 
will  come  soon  enough  to  play.  You  don't  play, 
do  you,  Sandy?  No,  of  course  not,  but  you  shall 
have  the  most  comfortable  chair  under  the  tulip- 
tree  and  be  umpire.  I  shall  choose  the  chair  for 
you  —  that  deep  one  with  the  red  cushion,  Pen, 
don't  you  know?" 

But  Pen  was  not  sympathetic  about  that  deep 
chair  —  indeed  Tre  thought  she  was  not  at  all  kind 
and  considerate  to  Sandy.  She  said  he  ought  to 
play  tennis,  and  that  it  was  very  lazy  not  to,  when, 
as  Tre  reasoned  with  herself,  of  course  old  people 
don't  care  to  be  running  about.  And  then,  when 
James  had  brought  out  that  chair  and  Tre  had 
shaken  up  the  cushion  and  set  it  in  the  best  posi- 
tion for  shade  and  seeing  the  game,  Pen  herself  sat 
down  in  it,  though  she  always  said  she  did  not  like 
that  chair,  it  was  so  deep  that  her  toes  did  not 
reach  the  ground  when  she  leant  back,  and  she  let 
Sandy  sit  on  a  horrid,  little,  upright  chair,  that 
went  by  the  name  of  the  stool  of  repentance,  be- 
cause it  made  one's  back  ache  if  one  sat  long  in  it, 
and  not  only  that,  but  she  let  James  go  quite  out 


266  PEN. 

of  hearing  before  she  remembered  that  she  wanted 
her  knitting  from  the  drawing-room  table,  and  ac- 
tually let  poor  Sandy  go  across  in  the  broiling  sun 
to  fetch  it  for  her,  and  she  really  did  not  want  it  at 
all,  for  she  was  not  the  least  fond  of  work,  and  did 
not  do  a  stitch  all  the  afternoon,  and  let  the  ball 
of  wool  roll  away  into  the  verbena-bed,  just  as  if 
she  did  it  on  purpose  to  make  Sandy  pick  it  up  for 
her,  and  he  so  stiff  and  rheumatic  as  young  Mr. 
Maclaren  had  said  ! 

Pen  was  really  very  inconsiderate  and  odd  to- 
day, and  Sandy  must  be  very  good-natured,  for  he 
seemed  to  like  it.  She  was  so  cross  too,  for  when, 
in  the  evening,  Sandy  had  just  driven  off  with  his 
brother  and  young  Mr.  Maclaren  in  the  dog-cart, 
and  she  and  Tre  were  standing,  watching  them 
down  the  drive,  and  Tre  said  —  "  Oh  !  Pen,  it  has 
been  so  delightful  to  see  how  well  Sandy  gets  on 
with  Aunt  Penelope  !  They  have  been  talking 

nearly  all  the  afternoon,  and  I  "m  sure  she  likes 

0 

him  very  much,  and  oh  !  Pen,  I  could  n't  help 
thinking  how  nice  it  would  be  if  she  were  to  marry 
him.  He 's  just  the  right  age  for  her.  Would  n't 
it  be  nice?  "  Pen  turned  on  her  quite  angrily,  and 
said  it  was  very  silly  to  think  of  such  things,  and 
that  Aunt  Penelope  would  be  very  angry,  and  that 
it  was  only  vulgar  people  who  imagined  that  a  lady 


LITTLE   MISS   TRE.  267 

and  gentleman  could  not  get  on  well  without  there 
being  a  lot  of  nonsense. 

Tre  could  not  remember  when  she  had  seen  Pen 
so  much  put  out,  and  she  had  never  called  her 
vulgar  before,  never ! 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

DRIFTING. 

'"TARE'S  vulgar  opinion  about  Sandy  and  Miss 
JL       Percival  was  not  confined  to  herself.     Old 
Tom  imparted  the  same,  with  much  chuckling,  to 
his  son,  as  they  dressed  for  dinner  that  evening. 

"  By  Jove  !  Tom,  that  uncle  of  yours  is  a  deep 
fellow !  An  uncommonly  fine  woman,  Miss  Per- 
cival, and  a  tidy  little  estate,  Highfield,  and  in  first- 
rate  order !  and  a  man  might  do  worse  than  step 
into  a  house  like  that,  and  hang  up  his  hat  as  its 
master.  She  may  be  a  bit  of  a  Tartar,  perhaps, 
but  Sandy 's  an  easy-going  temper  and  won't  in- 
terfere, and  he  wants  some  one  with  a  will  of  her 
own  to  make  up  his  mind  for  him.  I  never  gave 
him  credit  for  being  so  wide  awake.  It  really  was 
as  good  as  a  play  to  see  him  make  the  running  this 
afternoon.  You  did  n't  see  half  the  fun  because 
you  were  playing  tennis,  but  I  nearly  split  more 
than  once,  listening  to  the  pace  they  were  going. 
And  all  this  business  over  the  bailiffs  accounts  that 
Sandy  is  to  help  her  with  !  As  if  he  knew  as  much 


DRIFTING.  269 

about  farming  as  Rob  there  !  I  dare  say  he  can  do 
accounts  right  enough,  but  farming  !  Now  if  she  'd 
asked  me  —  " 

"  Oh  !  that 's  it?  "  said  young  Tom,  with  his  chin 
up  in  the  air,  buttoning  his  collar,  "  he  's  put  your 
nose  out  of  joint  with  the  lovely  Miss  Percival  —  eh, 
Sir?  I  did  n't  know  you  had  a  soft  corner  in  your 
heart  for  Highfield  House.  Well !  there  's  no  de- 
nying he  's  cut  you  clean  out.  It  seems  to  me 
that  I  Ve  got  a  word  to  say  to  it  too.  I  don't 
know  how  the  old  colonel  left  his  money,  but  I 
fancy  it  all  went  to  Miss  Percival,  and  the  nieces 
will  come  off  second  best  if  the  aunt  takes  to  her- 
self a  husband." 

"  So  the  money  was  the  attraction,  was  it?  "  said 
old  Tom.  "  I  was  romantic  enough  to  think  it 
was  the  pretty,  little  face.  But  it 's  a  mercenary 
age  ! " 

"  It  is  a  pretty,  little  face,  is  n't  it,  Sir?  I  don't 
know  when  I  saw  a  prettier,  and  she  has  a  way 
of  looking  straight  at  you,  so  serious  and  in- 
nocent, not  goggling  her  eyes  up  and  down  to 
show  off  her  lashes  —  though,  by  Jove  !  ain't  they 
long?  —  and  she  doesn't  giggle  like  other  girls, 
but  when  she  laughs,  she  laughs  out  as  if  she 
meant  it,  and  not  just  to  show  the  dimples  in  her 
cheeks." 


2/O  PEN. 

During  the  ensuing  weeks  Sandy  was  very  much 
at  Highfield  House,  and  Tom  the  elder  was  more 
and  more  strengthened  in  his  belief  in  his  own 
sharp-sightedness  and  in  his  brother's  acuteness ; 
but  young  Tom,  who  managed  also  to  be  a  good 
deal  at  Highfield,  though  his  opinion  was  not  asked 
about  farming  matters  nor  his  services  retained  for 
checking  the  bailiffs  accounts,  was  not  so  entirely 
convinced  on  either  point,  and  was  even  fain  to 
confess  to  himself — young  people  are  not  as  a  rule 
willing  to  confess  such  weakness  to  others  —  that 
he  was  fairly  puzzled. 

I  think  between  you  and  me,  reader,  that  young 
people  do  sometimes  see  farther  into  a  stone-wall 
than  their  elders,  though  it  does  not  do  to  let  them 
think  so,  and  this  particular  stone -wall  was  getting 
to  have  more  and  more  interest  to  young  Tom,  as 
that  sunny  July  rolled  away  into  pleasant,  mellow 
August. 

There  was  hardly  a  day  on  which  the  Highfield 
party  and  the  Luckham  Dene  party  did  not  meet 
on  one  excuse  or  other.  Besides  that  business  ex- 
cuse which  took  Sandy  over  to  Highfield  frequently 
in  the  morning,  and  which  old  Tom  openly  scoffed 
at  as  the  most  paltry  excuse  imaginable,  there  were 
meetings  for  tennis  and  luncheon  and  boating  and 
picnics  and  riding,  there  were  messages  to  be  taken 


DRIFTING.  2/1 

and  notes  delivered  or  something  that  had  been 
left  behind  to  restore  to  its  owner. 

If  any  power  on  earth  could  make  the  course  of 
Tom's  true  love  run  smooth,  his  father  would  do  it 
—  not  that  old  Tom  was  always  quite  judicious  in 
his  interference  with  that  capricious  stream,  which 
runs  smoothest  as  a  rule  when  it  is  left  alone,  to 
run  under  the  bridge  at  its  own  sweet  will.  He 
sometimes  put  his  spoke  in  rather  awkwardly,  when 
parties  had  to  be  divided,  so  as  to  throw  Tom  and 
Pen  together  in  the  same  boat,  or  on  the  return 
walk  in  the  moonlight,  or  on  the  same  side  at 
tennis,  and  was  surprised  at  irritated  glances  re- 
warding his  kind  endeavors.  He  also  had  a  way 
of  talking  of  "we  old  fellows"  and  "you  young 
folk,"  which  was  particularly  annoying  to  Pen,  and 
not  always  quite  acceptable  to  Sandy. 

Sandy  went  drifting  along  just  then  without  look- 
ing ahead.  It  was  very  pleasant,  life  had  never 
seemed  so  bright,  it  was  quite  enough  to  live  just 
in  the  present,  seeing  Pen  and  Tre  nearly  every 
day,  being  coaxed  and  teased  and  petted  by  Tre, 
and  being  near  Pen.  Why  cannot  these  pleasant 
times  go  on  indefinitely?  Happiness  is  such  a 
fragile  thing,  it  does  not  bear  fingering ;  if  you  try 
to  alter  it  at  all  it  often  disappears.  But  restless 
mortals  cannot  learn  to  leave  well  alone,  they  al- 


2/2  PEN. 

ways  want  to  be  a  little  bit  happier,    and  their 
tinkering  often  ends  in  an  entire  collapse. 

It  was  old  Tom  on  this  occasion  who  could 
not  leave  well  alone,  and  who,  being  afraid  to 
attack  young  Tom  from  that  wholesome  paternal 
respect  which  parents  of  the  present  day  are  apt 
to  display,  went  at  Sandy  instead.  He  and  young 
Tom  had  an  engagement  for  September  to  join  a 
big  shooting-party  in  Warwickshire,  and  he  was  in 
a  fidget  that  matters  should  be  settled,  between 
young  Tom  and  Pen,  before  they  went,  and  he 
could  not  see  why  they  should  not  be  and  what 
was  the  reason  of  the  delay. 

"  It 's  as  plain  as  a  pikestaff,"  as  he  told  Sandy, 
"  that  the  girl  likes  him  and  he  likes  her,  so  what 's 
the  good  of  all  this  shilly-shallying?  I  declare  if 
it  goes  on  much  longer,  I  shall  take  the  matter 
into  my  hands  and  say,  '  My  dear,  Tom  loves  you 
and  wants  you  to  marry  him,  only  he  has  n't  the 
pluck  to  tell  you  so.'  I  wish  you  'd  have  a  talk  to 
him,  Sandy,  and  put  it  before  him.  When  I  said 
something  the  other  day,  he  pretended  to  be  cool 
about  it  and  to  fancy  the  girl  has  a  liking  for  some 
one  else,  which  is  nonsense,  pure  nonsense  !  for 
who  is  there,  I  should  like  to  know,  except  half-a- 
dozen  starveling  curates  that  no  sensible  girl  would 
look  twice  at?  Why,  there  is  not  a  soul  worth 


DRIFTING.  2/3 

looking  at  but  Tom  between  this  and  Merfield. 
Now  is  there  ?  "  said  this  proud  father,  fully  be- 
lieving what  he  said. 

"  You  'd  better  speak  to  him  yourself,"  Sandy 
answered. 

"  I  tell  you  he  won't  let  me  tackle  him.  Now 
you  've  known  the  girl  all  her  life.  I  suppose  there 
could  not  have  been  any  attachment  before  she 
came  to  live  with  her  aunt?  but  of  course  not, 
she  was  only  a  child  when  she  came  —  twelve, 
wasn't  it?" 

"  Quite  a  child,"  Sandy  testified,  "  fifteen  or 
about  that." 

"  Well,  I  wish  you  would  tell  Tom  that,  and  that 
you  are  quite  sure  she  does  not  care  for  any  one 
else.  You  like  her,  don't  you,  Sandy?  You 
really,  honestly,  think  highly  of  her,  and  think  her 
good  enough  for  Tom  ?  Of  course  it 's  nothing  or 
very  little  to  you,  but  it 's  a  serious  thing  to  me, 
and  I  feel  sometimes  that  it  is  a  great  responsi- 
bility helping  it  on  at  all ;  that  if  it  turned  out  un- 
fortunate, or  if  she  was  not  all  one  fancied,  I  should 
never  forgive  myself.  If  you  Ve  any  doubt  on  the 
matter,  just  give  me  a  hint,  and  I  '11  manage  to  get 
Tom  away  to  Warwickshire  sooner.  I  think  he  is 
pretty  hard  hit,  but  still  I  Ve  fancied  the  same  be- 
fore and  it 's  proved  to  be  nothing  at  all ;  so  if 
18 


2/4  PEN. 

you  know  any  cause  or  impediment  why  these  two 
should  not  be  joined  in  holy  matrimony,  as  the 
parsons  say,  out  with  it,  and  I  '11  see  if  there  's  not 
some  Warwickshire  young  lady  who  can  put  little 
Miss  Pen  out  of  his  head." 

No,  Sandy  knew  no  cause  or  impediment,  and 
when  further  urged,  declared  that  he  thought  Tom 
would  be  lucky  to  get  such  a  wife,  which  old  Tom 
thought  was  putting  it  rather  strongly,  much  as  he 
liked  Pen. 

"  But  then,  of  course,  she  's  just  like  a  child 
of  your  own,  isn't  she,  Sandy?  quite  like  your 
daughter,  eh?" 

"  Quite,"  agreed  poor  Sandy. 

"  Then  you  '11  have  a  talk  with  Tom,  and  tell 
him  to  pluck  up  his  courage  and  have  it  out?  I 
can't  think  what  he  's  afraid  of.  She  has  given  him 
as  much  encouragement  as  you  could  expect  from  a 
modest  girl,  and  as  for  Miss  Percival,  it 's  plain  she 
has  no  objection.  Why,  she  's  always  asking  him 
over.  Oh  yes,  I  know  it 's  not  all  on  Miss  Pen's 
account,  she 's  so  sociable,  it 's  one  word  for  her 
niece  and  two  for  herself,  eh,  Sandy?" 

And  then  old  Tom  was  wanted  about  something 
in  the  farmyard,  and  he  left  Sandy  to  his  reflections. 
Not  very  pleasant  reflections  either ;  that  drifting 
process  is  by  no  means  a  safe  one,  however  pleas- 


DRIFTING.  2/5 

ant  it  may  be,  and  somehow,  through  those  July  and 
August  days,  Sandy  had  drifted  some  way  from  the 
sensible  resolution  he  had  arrived  at  in  the  High- 
field  seat  that  Sunday  afternoon  when  he  first  met 
Pen,  to  regard  her  as  young  Tom's  lady-love  and 
the  very  girl  of  all  others  suited  to  be  his  wife.  It 
was  very  odd,  considering  how  much  he  had  been 
with  the  two,  that  it  had  been  so  little  impressed 
on  his  mind,  when  it  was  so  very  evident  to  old 
Tom  and  no  doubt  to  every  one  else  ;  it  seemed  to 
him  that  Tom  was  as  much  with  Tre  as  with  Pen, 
and  that  it  was  only  when  old  Tom  put  in  his 
oar  that  there  was  any  of  that  pairing  off,  that  he 
was  always  led  to  suppose  came  about  naturally 
without  any  assistance  from  outsiders.  However, 
no  doubt  he  was  dull  and  short-sighted,  and 
he  had  had,  to  be  sure,  no  experience  in  such 
matters. 

It  was  not  till  quite  the  last  thing  at  night  that 
Sandy  could  make  up  his  mind  to  say  anything  to 
young  Tom,  and  then  it  was  partly  because  old 
Tom  went  up  to  bed  and  left  them  together,  with  a 
meaning  look  at  Sandy  as  much  as  to  say,  "  Now 's 
your  time  !  " 

It  was  a  lovely  night,  with  the  big  harvest  moon 
shining  clear  and  calm  in  the  cloudless  sky,  throw- 
ing black  shadows  across  the  lawn,  and  drawing  a 


2/6  PEN. 

silver  streak  on  the  stream  below,  and  showing 
quite  distinctly  the  sheaves  of  corn  in  the  harvest 
fields  on  the  opposite  hill. 

Young  Tom  was  sitting  on  the  arm  of  a  chair, 
in  the  veranda,  smoking  and  contemplating  this 
moonlight  scene,  with  his  face  turned  away,  so  that 
Sandy  could  not  gain  anything  from  observing  his 
expression,  while  Sandy  himself  sat  by  the  table 
full  in  the  lamplight,  with  the  artlessness  of  age,  so 
that  Tom  could,  every  now  and  then,  cast  a  look 
over  his  shoulder  at  his  uncle's  face,  and  get  a 
good  deal  of  information  in  that  way. 

Sandy  plunged  into  the  subject  apropos  to  noth- 
ing at  all  —  indeed  I  think  the  last  matter  of  dis- 
cussion had  been  rats,  than  which  nothing  could 
have  been  more  unsuggestive  of  Pen. 

"  I  have  been  talking  to  your  father  about  Pen." 

"  Ah?  "  knocking  the  ashes  from  his  cigar. 

"  She  is  a  very  nice  girl." 

"Very." 
'     "  And  pretty." 

"  Quite." 

"  And  you  like  her." 

"  I  do." 

"And  she  likes  you." 

"  I  hope  so." 

"  Look  here,  Tom,  nonsense  apart,  what  do  you 


DRIFTING.  277 

mean  to  do  ?  You  're  not  just  amusing  yourself, 
and  trifling  with  her?  If  you  are  —  " 

"  Oh  come  !  Sandy,  don't  look  so  fierce  !  My 
nerves  won't  stand  it." 

It  was  very  unsatisfactory,  and  Sandy  began  to 
wish  he  had  left  it  alone  ;  but  presently  Tom  him- 
self renewed  the  subject  in  a  more  serious  tone. 
"  I  'm  rather  glad  to  have  a  talk  with  you  about 
this  matter.  The  governor  is  such  an  impetuous, 
old  person,  he  wants  everything  settled  up,  and 
the  day  fixed  and  the  ring  bought,  in  a  couple 
of  days." 

"Ah,"  thought  Sandy  to  himself,  "one  day  is 
enough  for  some  people." 

"  There  's  no  doubt,  as  you  say,  that  she  's  a 
very  nice,  pretty  girl,  but  —  " 

Sandy  drew  fiercely  at  his  pipe.  He  was  very 
fond  of  Tom  in  a  usual  way,  but  somehow,  at 
this  moment,  the  expression  "  puppy "  associated 
itself  in  his  mind  with  his  nephew,  and  there  was 
an  irritable  feeling  in  his  toe,  as  if  it  would  have 
kicked  somebody  or  something  if  it  had  followed 
its  own  inclination.  That  "  but "  seemed  a  perfect 
outrage  on  Pen  —  Pen,  as  he  saw  her  before  his 
mind's  eye,  standing  in  her  white  dress  among  the 
lilies,  pure  and  stately  and  gracious.  Pen  to  be 
spoken  of  with  a  "  but  "  !  Sentiments  read  more 


2/8  PEN. 

plainly  than  their  owner  knew  in  the  light  of  the 
lamp. 

"  I  can't  help  thinking,"  went  on  Tom  imper- 
turbably,  "  that  she  may  have  had  some  other 
attachment,  liked  some  other  fellow.  I  suppose 
you  don't  know  of  anything  of  the  sort  before 
she  came  to  Highfield?" 

"  She  was  a  mere  child  when  she  came." 
Sandy's  voice  was  not  very  distinct,  his  pipe  did 
not  seem  to  draw. 

"  Yes,  to  be  sure  !  so  she  was.  Let  me  see, 
how  old  was  she  ?  " 

"  Fifteen,"  rather  shortly. 

"  Oh,  as  much  as  that  ?  Well,  many  girls  are 
accomplished  coquettes  at  that  age." 

"  She  was  not." 

"  No,  I  should  think  not,  she  must  have  been 
very  like  what  her  sister  is  now,  only  not  so  pretty." 

"  Not  so  pretty  ?  Tre  will  never  be  fit  to  hold 
a  candle  to  Pen  !  " 

"  Oh,  come  now  !  tastes  differ.  But  I  'm  not 
denying  that  Miss  Pen  is  pretty,  only  a  trifle  too 
serious  perhaps,  a  little  old  for  her  age.  She 
makes  one  feel  almost  like  a  boy  when  one  talks 
to  her,  as  if  she  belonged  to  a  generation  above 
one.  Of  course  it 's  absurd,  she  's  only  —  how 
old  now  ?  Two  or  three  and  twenty  —  ?  But  I 


DRIFTING.  279 

think  the  fact  of  the  matter  is,  we  all  of  us  as  a 
family  have  rather  a  young  taste.  The  governor, 
if  you  notice,  always  gets  on  best  with  little  girls, 
and  don't  take  to  the  dowagers  at  all,  though,  to 
be  sure,  the  mother  was  a  year  or  two  his  senior. 
Then  you  don't  think  there  was  any  sort  of  love 
affair  before  she  came?" 

"  I  think  not.  If  there  was,  it  must  have  been 
too  childish  an  affair  to  have  lasted  any  time." 

"  And  I  suppose  in  those  days  in  Dalston  — 
Dalston,  wasn't  it? — they  didn't  see  many 
people?  hardly  any  one  but  you,  I  think  you 
told  me." 

"  No." 

"  Then  you  think  there  is  no  doubt  in  that 
quarter  and  that  I  might  go  ahead  ?  The  gover- 
nor seems  very  hot  on  it,  and  I  think  I  have  Miss 
Percival  on  my  side.  Well,  if  the  deed  's  to  be 
done,  it 's  no  use  putting  it  off,  though  it  makes  a 
fellow  a  bit  nervous. 

" '  He  either  fears  his  fate  too  much, 
Or  his  deserts  are  small, 
Who  fears  to  put  it  to  the  touch 
To  win  or  lose  it  all,'  " 

sang  Tom  lightly.  "To-morrow,  shall  it  be? 
What  do  you  say?  " 


28O  PEN. 

"Why  not  to-morrow?" 

"Why!  are  you  going  to  bed  already?"  for 
Sandy  had  got  up  and  laid  down  his  half-finished 
pipe,  every  detail  marked  by  a  watchful  eye  from 
the  veranda  —  an  eye  with  a  laugh  lurking  in  the 
corner  of  it.  "  I  thought  you  would  sit  up  a  bit 
longer  and  give  me  some  advice  for  to-morrow. 
A  criminal  used  to  be  allowed  a  friend  to  bear 
him  company  the  night  before  he  was  turned  off, 
and  if  I  am  to  make  the  fatal  plunge  to- 
morrow —  " 

There  is  a  limit  to  human  endurance ;  the  last 
turn  of  the  rack  will  wring  a  groan  from  the  most 
intrepid  of  martyrs,  and  Sandy  could  stand  no 
more. 

"  I  think  I  '11  turn  in,"  he  said  wearily,  "  I  'm 
tired." 

"You  wish  me  success,  don't  you?  She  is  a 
dear  little  girl,  and  I  'm  really  very  fond  of  her. 
There 's  no  one  in  the  world  I  'd  rather  have  for 
my—" 

And  here  the  door  closed  on  Sandy,  sick  at 
heart,  tired  to  death,  so  that  he  did  not  hear  the 
concluding  word  of  Tom's  sentence,  which,  indeed, 
was  not  meant  for  his  ears. 

"  There  's  no  one  in  the  world  I  'd  rather  have 
for  my —  aunt." 


DRIFTING.  28l 

And  then  that  worthless,  good-for-nothing 
nephew  of  his  burst  into  peals  of  carefully 
smothered  laughter  till  the  tears  ran  down  his 
cheeks,  and  he  had  to  bend  and  rock  backwards 
and  forwards  to  get  the  better  of  it. 

"  Poor,  old  buffer ! "  he  said,  when  he  got 
breath  again. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

A   THREATENING   OF   GOUT. 

" "\7"OUR  uncle  is  seedy  this  morning,"  said  old 
•*•  Tom  at  breakfast  next  day,  "  he 's  got  a 
bit  of  a  cold  hanging  about  him,  and,  I  tell  you 
what,  Tom,  I  shouldn't  be  a  bit  surprised  if  he 
hadn't  a  touch  of  the  gout.  I  felt  a  bit  like  it 
myself  yesterday,  and  it 's  not  likely  he  '11  escape. 
Why,  I  had  it  before  I  was  five-and-twenty,  and 
I  Ve  not-  had  a  clear  twelvemonth  since.  Oh  ! 
it 's  no  use  talking  about  port  wine.  That 's  quite 
an  exploded  notion ;  you  can  have  gout  quite  as 
well  on  toast  and  water  nowadays,  and  it 's  not  the 
least  aristocratic,  for  paupers  in  the  workhouse  in- 
firmary have  their  share  of  it  every  bit  as  much  as 
the  ratepayers." 

"  He  '11  have  to  be  quick  about  it,"  said  the  un- 
sympathizing  Tom,  "  for  he  promised  Miss  Percival 
to  be  over  there  this  morning  by  eleven.  I  said  I 
would  drive  him  over,  as,"  with  a  would-be  con- 
scious look  and  a  careful  avoidance  of  his  father's 
beaming  gaze,  "  I  have  a  little  business  to  settle 
myself  over  there." 


A  THREATENING   OF  GOUT.  283 

"  He  said  that,  perhaps,  you  would  take  his  ex- 
cuses to  Miss  Percival  or  he  'd  write  a  note." 

"  Ah  !  "  said  Tom  coolly,  "  we  can  send  the  boy 
over;  my  business  can  wait." 

"Why  shouldn't  you  go ?"  urgently.  "Sandy 
seemed  very  anxious  not  to  prevent  your  going, 
and  Miss  Percival  will  think  it  queer  if  neither  of 
you  turn  up." 

"  Oh,  hang  it  all !  am  I  to  do  Sandy's  courting 
for  him  ?  That 's  more  than  I  bargained  for.  Am 
I  to  ask  Miss  Percival  her  intentions?  or  get  her 
to  name  the  day?" 

Tom  was  in  one  of  his  tiresome  moods,  in  which 
his  father,  not  being  good  at  repartee,  and  also 
being  very  much  in  earnest,  always  got  the  worst 
of  it. 

"  It 's  very  plain,"  he  said,  "  that  Sandy  is  not 
up  to  much.  He  says  he  's  had  a  bad  night,  and 
I  heard  him  once,  when  I  woke,  tramping  up  and 
down  his  room.  Perhaps  it  was  that  cucumber 
at  dinner ;  people  with  a  gouty  tendency  ought  to 
be  careful  what  they  eat." 

"Very,"  said  Tom;  "but  it  does  not  matter 
what  they  drink,  port  wine,  or  toast  and  water, 
it 's  all  the  same.  He  did  n't  sleep  ?  did  n't  he  ? 
that 's  odd  !  but,  of  course,  as  you  say,  it  may 
have  been  the  cucumber." 


284  pEN. 

Sandy  certainly  looked  none  the  better  for  his 
sleepless  night,  whether  that  sleeplessness  was 
caused  by  cucumber  or  anything  else;  he  had 
relapsed  into  the  listlessness  that  had  so  struck 
Tom  when  he  first  came  back,  which  had  quite 
disappeared  during  the  last  few  weeks.  He  came 
slouching  down  with  his  shoulders  up  to  his  ears, 
and  his  oldest  coat  on,  and  was  chilly  and  irritable, 
which  certainly  looked  like  gout.  He  kept  com- 
plaining of  the  cold,  though  it  was  a  bright,  fresh 
August  day;  and,  at  his  suggestion,  a  fire  was 
lighted  in  the  smoking-room,  and  he  pulled  up  an 
armchair  with  its  back  to  the  window  and  collected 
a  heap  of  newspapers,  to  be  a  pretext  for  silence 
if  any  one  came  into  the  room. 

The  sound  of  Tom's  voice  was  particularly  irri- 
tating to  his  nerves,  and  the  cheerful  whistle  he 
kept  up  exasperated  him  almost  beyond  endur- 
ance. Old  Tom  was  much  more  supportable, 
though  his  suggestions  about  the  gout  were  an- 
noying, but  Sandy  felt  old  and  dilapidated,  so 
the  remarks  about  "  we  old  fellows "  and  "  at 
our  age,  you  know,  Sandy,"  which  had  irritated 
him  occasionally,  now  chimed  in  with  his  own 
sentiments. 

Young  Tom,  though  sorely  tempted,  mercifully 
forbore  to  torment  him,  and  consented  to  go  off 


A  THREATENING   OF   GOUT.  285 

alone  to  Highfield,  bearing  a  note  of  apology  from 
Sandy. 

"  Though  I  shall  get  nothing  but  black  looks 
when  they  see  me  arrive  without  you.  They  will 
be  horribly  disgusted,  —  I  mean,  of  course,  Miss 
Percival." 

When  he  was  gone,  and  old  Tom  was  off  on 
some  farm  business,  Sandy  was  left  to  himself. 
Such  a  wearisome  old  self  to  be  left  to  !  and  to 
feel  that  to  the  end  of  his  life  no  better  company 
was  to  be  looked  for  ! 

He  could  not  prevent  his  mind  following  Tom 
and  his  high- stepping  chestnut  along  the  pleasant 
road,  under  the  hedgerow  elms,  heavy  with  their 
thick,  dark,  summer  foliage,  untouched  yet  by 
autumn's  hand,  past  the  broad,  sunny,  harvest 
fields,  where  the  big  wagons  were  gathering  the 
golden  sheaves,  past  the  pretty  lodge,  covered 
with  honeysuckle  and  monthly  roses,  where  the 
lodge-keeper's  wife  would  run  out  to  open  the  gate 
and  smile  and  courtesy  to  the  young  fellow  with, 
no  doubt,  a  shrewd  guess  at  his  errand ;  then  the 
drive  through  the  park  up  to  the  fine,  old  house  — 
Where  would  he  find  her?  In  the  drawing-room? 
out  in  the  garden  ?  under  the  tulip-tree  ?  down  in 
the  shrubbery?  Not,  Sandy  hoped,  with  a  touch 
of  sharp  pain,  in  the  yew-tree  walk  where  the 


286  PEN. 

lilies  grew !  He  could  not  bear  to  think  that 
Tom's  tale  of  love  should  be  told  there ;  that  was 
his,  and  though  the  lilies  were  long  since  gone,  in 
Sandy's  mind  they  bloomed  there  still,  white  and 
fragrant  and  pure,  and  Pen  among  them. 

He  took  up  a  newspaper,  and  tried  to  turn  his 
thoughts  by  reading  an  article  on  ensilage,  but  his 
attention  would  wander,  and  the  print  was  bad,  and 
he  could  not  see ;  no  doubt  his  sight  was  failing, 
what  could  he  expect  at  his  age  ?  Then  he  poked 
the  fire  and  let  the  poker  drop  on  his  foot,  which 
recalled  the  idea  of  gout  to  his  mind,  and,  by  per- 
sistent thinking,  he  began  to  persuade  himself  that 
his  foot  was  swelling  and  that  he  felt  shooting  pains 
up  his  leg,  and  he  had  even  gone  so  far  as  to  give 
vent  to  a  groan,  and  to  hoist  his  foot  up  on  to  a 
chair,  when  an  interruption  occurred  which  put  it 
out  of  his  head  and  apparently  out  of  his  foot  too 
for  good  and  all. 

It  was  the  sound  of  wheels  coming  up  the  drive, 
unmistakably  those  of  Tom's  dog-cart.  WJiat  did 
this  betide  ?  An  accepted  lover  does  not  generally 
fly  from  his  lady's  presence  immediately ;  a  re- 
jected ?  Oh,  no  !  that  was  impossible.  Perhaps 
Pen  was  engaged  with  other  visitors,  and  Tom  saw 
he  would  have  no  chance  to-day. 

But  the  next  moment  Tom  opened  the  door  and 


A  THREATENING   OF   GOUT.  287 

looked  in,  with  such  a  smiling  face  as  put  any  idea 
of  rejection  out  of  the  question  and  made  even 
suspense  seem  improbable. 

"  I  've  brought  you  some  visitors,"  he  said ;  "  as 
the  mountain  would  not  go  to  Mahomet,  Mahomet 
has  come  to  the  mountain.  Allow  me  to  introduce 
Mahomet." 

And  there  were  Pen  and  Tre,  and  before  he 
could  get  the  so-called  gouty  foot  down,  or  strug- 
gle up  from  the  depth  of  his  armchair,  they  were 
bending  over  him  with  faces  of  much  concern 
and  compassion,  and  asking  anxiously  about  his 
health. 

"  I  made  out  such  a  pitiful  case,"  said  Tom, 
"  that  the  young  ladies  could  not  rest  till  they  had 
seen  the  invalid,  and  I  persuaded  Miss  Percival  to 
let  them  come  and  have  lunch  and  share  the  bur- 
den of  nursing  you.  They  have  been  attending 
the  ambulance  class  at  Ashling,  and  know  how  to 
treat  all  manner  of  ailments.  Miss  Tre  has  been 
longing  for  me  to  come  to  grief  in  the  dog-cart,  so 
that  she  might  get  a  chance  of  bandaging  a  broken 
arm  or  two.  They  have  brought  their  bandages 
and  First  Aidbook,  and  if  you  're  ready,  Sir,  they 
will  set  to  work  and  administer  an  emetic  or  open 
an  artery." 

Tom  went  rattling  on  with  his  nonsense,  and 


288  PEN. 

presently  old  Tom  appeared  and  luncheon  was 
ready,  and  the  whole"  party  adjourned  to  the 
dining-room.  Pen  was  very  quiet ;  Sandy  fancied 
she  was  a  little  nervous ;  perhaps  she  knew  what 
was  coming.  Tom  was  in  very  good  spirits,  laugh- 
ing and  talking  all  lunch-time.  Sandy  rather  re- 
sented his  behavior ;  it  would  have  been  more  be- 
coming in  him,  he  thought,  if  he  had  shown  more 
diffidence  and  had  not  made  so  sure  of  success. 
It  was  not  good  taste  either,  it  seemed  to  him,  to 
have  brought  Pen  there  ;  the  proposal  should  have 
been  made  at  Highfield,  at  the  girl's  own  home, 
so  that,  if  the  answer  were  unfavorable,  there  might 
be  no  awkwardness  for  her. 

In  a  moment  of  depression  in  the  morning, 
Sandy  had  ordered  a  basin  of  arrowroot  for  his 
luncheon,  which  made  its  appearance  accordingly, 
much  to  his  embarrassment  and  to  the  amusement 
of  young  Tom,  who,  you  may  be  sure,  did  not 
allow  the  incident  to  pass  unnoticed. 

He  was  not  permitted  to  drop  the  part  of  in- 
valid altogether ;  old  Tom  and  Tre  bo  no.  fide,  and 
young  Tom  from  malice  prepense,  kept  up  the  de- 
lusion, young  Tom  offering  his  arm  to  help  him 
from  the  luncheon- table,  and  Tre  running  for  a 
footstool  to  put  under  his  feet,  and  old  Tom  offer- 
ing advice  about  things  to  be  done  and  avoided 


A  THREATENING  OF   GOUT.  289 

when  an  attack  of  gout  was  threatening;  so,  of 
course,  after  lunch,  when  the  party  betook  them- 
selves into  the  garden  and  down  the  meadow  to 
see  some  waterfowl  on  the  stream,  Sandy  was  not 
expected  to  join  them,  and  Pen  declared  she  was 
a  little  tired  and  would  stop  with  him. 

But  it  was  not  likely  that  old  Tom  would  allow 
this  division  of  the  party,  and  before  the  meadow 
was  reached,  young  Tom  was  sent  back  to  beg 
Miss  Pen  to  come,  as  his  father  particularly  wanted 
her  to  see  the  ducks. 

There  was  a  little,  comical  look  on  Tom's  face 
as  he  gave  the  message,  the  tete-a-tete  in  the 
veranda  looked  very  pleasant,  Sandy  had  bright- 
ened up  amazingly,  and  Pen,  in  her  low  basket- 
chair  at  his  side,  looked  quite  content  with  the 
arrangement. 

Pen  got  up  a  little  reluctantly,  and  Sandy  rose 
too,  as  if  he  would  have  accompanied  her,  and 
then  stopped  suddenly  and  sat  down  again.  Was 
it  a  twinge  of  the  gout,  or  was  it  a  sudden 
recollection  ? 

"  Go,  my  dear,"  he  said,  "  I  think  you  had 
better.  Go  with  Torn*." 

And  then  Tom  and  Pen  went  out  of  the  ve- 
randa across  the  lawn,  slowly  as  lovers  go,  and 
stopped,  as  lovers  are  wont  to  stop,  at  the  gate 
'9 


29O  PEN. 

into  the  meadow.  Old  Tom  could  see  them  as 
he  and  Tre  inspected  the  ducks,  and  fed  them 
with  bread-crumbs,  and,  with  much  inward  delight 
and  satisfaction,  he  tried  to  prolong  as  much  as 
possible  Tre's  interest  in  the  ducking  and  diving 
crowd,  and  to  spin  out  the  supply  of  bread,  so  that 
nothing  should  suggest  a  return  to  the  house  or  the 
finding  of  any  other  sort  of  amusement. 

Sandy  too  could  see  them,  all  too  plainly  for  his 
peace  of  mind,  as  he  sat  in  his  chair  under  the  ve- 
randa —  Tom,  leaning  over  Pen  in  eager  speech ; 
Pen,  with  bent  head  and  down-dropped  eyes,  play- 
ing with  a  rose  in  her  hand.  Sandy  could  not 
endure  the  sight  for  more  than  a  minute,  but  im- 
patiently jerked  his  chair  round  so  that  his  view 
was  altered  to  that  of  the  dining-room  and  the 
servants  clearing  the  luncheon-table.  He  felt  so 
old  and  cross  and  ill-natured,  he  could  not  stand 
this  billing  and  cooing,  there  was  something  nau- 
seating about  it  to  a  man  of  his  age ;  he  would  go 
clear  away.  Tom  was  no  son  of  his,  thank  good- 
ness !  he  was  not  bound  to  stand  by  and  admire 
whatever  this  young  divinity  chose  to  do,  and  ap- 
plaud as  his  father  did.  He  would  go  off  the  very 
next  day,  to  some  place  where  he  could  be  as  old 
and  disagreeable  as  he  pleased,  - —  to  Monkton, 
perhaps,  to  the  two  quiet  graves,  to  the  old,  gray, 


A  THREATENING   OF   GOUT.  29 1 

tossing  sea,  out  of  the  way  of  congratulations  and 
wedding-bells. 

And  then  he  became  aware  of  a  step  coming 
towards  him,  a  light  step  crossing  the  gravel  path 
and  hesitating  at  the  veranda.  It  was  Pen,  and 
Pen  by  herself,  with  a  strange,  shy,  wistful  look 
on  her  face  and  the  color  coming  and  going  in 
her  cheeks,  and  she  was  disengaging  something 
from  a  ribbon  at  her  throat. 

One  effort  more  !  he  must  wish  her  joy,  he  must 
not  spoil  little  Pen's  happiness  by  his  wretched 
selfishness. 

"  Sandy,"  she  said,  "  I  have  been  talking  to 
Tom." 

It  was  the  first  time  she  had  spoken  of  him  by 
his  Christian  name,  and  Sandy's  jealous  ear  marked 
it  with  a  pang. 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  and  his  voice  sounded  very 
harsh  and  cold  and  unfit  for  an  old  friend,  who 
had  known  her  from  her  babyhood,  and  should  have 
been  happy  in  her  happiness  and  rejoiced  in  her 
joy.  "  Yes,  I  know,  my  dear,  I  know.  Where 
is  he?  " 

"  He  has  gone  down  into  the  meadow  with  Tre. 
Do  you  know,  Sandy,"  she  went  on,  —  and  as  she 
spoke,  standing  in  front  of  him,  twisting  a  bit  of 
narrow  ribbon  in  her  hands,  Sandy  saw  that  on  the 


PEN. 

third  finger  of  her  little  left  hand  was  a  wedding- 
ring,  old  and  thin  and  worn,  but  bright,  —  "  do  you 
know  he  told  me  to-day,  what  I  have  guessed  for 
some  time,  that  he  loves  little  Tre ;  only  think  of 
that !  little  Tre,  who  seems  only  a  child  still.  And 
do  you  know,  Sandy,  —  but  I  did  not  tell  Tom  so, 
for  he  will  find  it  out  for  himself  one  day,  —  I 
think  little  Tre  loves  him,  though,  perhaps,  she 
hardly  knows  it  herself.  He  won't  ask  her  yet, 
there  is  no  need,  they  are  very  happy  as  they  are, 
and  she  is  not  a  poor,  desolate,  little  girl  who 
wants  a  home ;  but  if  he  speaks  to-day,  or  waits 
for  ten  years,  I  think  it  will  be  all  the  same,  that 
Tre  will  love  him  and  no  one  else  to  the  end  of 
her  life." 

She  was  silent  a  moment,  and  so  was  Sandy,  who 
had  got  up  and  stood  before  her,  with  his  eyes 
riveted  on  that  little  ring,  which  she  kept  turning 
on  her  finger  as  she  spoke. 

"Sandy,"  she  said  with  a  little  gasp,  "do  you 
remember  what  day  it  is?  Do  you  remember 
what  you  said  to  me  this  very  day  ten  years 
ago?" 

He  had  her  hand  in  his  now,  the  hand  with  the 
wedding-ring. 

"  You  asked  me  if  I  could  trust  you  then,  and  I 
have  trusted  you  all  these  ten  years  of  silence,  and 


A  THREATENING  OF  GOUT.  293 

I  trust  you  now,  and  I  always  shall  as  long  as  I 
live.  You  said,  Sandy,  I  should  be  a  child  as  long 
as  I  liked  till  some  day.  Oh,  Sandy,  has  not  that 
some  day  come?" 

It  was  half  an  hour  later,  when  they  were  walk- 
ing down  the  shrubbery  path  to  find  the  others, 
whom  Tom  had  been  carefully  keeping  out  of  the 
way  by  all  the  arts  known  to  him.  Both  Pen's 
hands  were  clasped  on  Sandy's  arm,  and  were 
kept  there  by  his  large,  right  hand. 

That  little  ring  of  Sandy's  mother  was  still  on 
her  finger ;  as  on  a  former  occasion,  it  did  not 
come  off  as  readily  as  it  went  on,  but  then,  as 
Pen  explained  it,  it  might  be  a  gouty  tendency  in 
the  slim,  little,  white  finger,  "  because,  you  know, 
Sandy,  at  our  age,  we  must  expect  such  things." 

And  there  was  Tom  coming  to  meet  them,  to 
announce  that  tea  was  to  be  served  in  the  boat- 
house  by  the  stream ;  Tom  with  a  world  of  mis- 
chief lurking  in  his  eyes,  with  stores,  as  Sandy 
knew  full  well,  of  unsparing  chaff  to  pour  out  on 
him  by  and  by ;  but  who  cares  for  Tom's  chaff? 
not  Sandy  for  one. 

"Well?"  he  said  to  Pen,  "shall  you  expect  me 
to  call  you  Aunt  Pen?" 

"  Of  course  I  shall,"  she  answered,  and,  as  Sandy 
grudgingly  let  go  one  of  her  hands  that  she  might 


294  PEN- 

place  it  in  Tom's,  she  added,  "  I  think  I  shall  like 
my  nephew  Tom." 

And  he  answered,  "And  I  like  you  very  much 
for  my  Aunt  Pen  at  present,  but  some  day  I  should 
like  you  better  for  a  sister." 

So  Tom  had  his  "  some  day  "  too. 


THE   END. 


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THE   MAN    WITHOUT   A   COUNTRY. 

By  EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE.    Holiday  Edition,  with  Illustra- 
tions by  F.  T.  Merrill.    4to.     Cloth.     Gilt.     Price,  $2.50. 


Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers'  Announcements. 

FRANKLIN  IN   FRANCE. 

PART  II.  The  Treaty  of  Peace  and  Franklin's  Life  till  his 
Return.  From  original  documents.  By  EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE 
and  EDWARD  E.  HALE,  JR.  i  vol.  8vo.  Cloth,  gilt  top,  uniform 
with  the  first  volume.  Price,  $3.00. 

FANCY  DRESSES  DESCRIBED. 

Or,  What  to  Wear  at  Fancy  Balls.  By  ARDERN  HOLT.  With 
16  richly  colored  full-page  plates,  and  numerous  smaller  ones,  i  vol. 
Crown  8vo.  Cloth.  Price,  $2.50. 

The  accuracy  of  details,  and  simplicity  of  descriptions,  will  enable  many  ladies  to 
produce  the  costumes  at  home. 

ROGER  BERKELEY'S  PROBATION. 

A  Story.  By  HELEN  CAMPBELL,  author  of  "Prisoners  of 
Poverty,"  "  Miss  Melinda's  Opportunity,"  "  Mrs.  Herndon's  In- 
come," "The  What-to-do  Club."  I2mo.  Cloth.  Price,  #1.00 ; 
paper  covers,  50  cents. 

CLOVER. 

A  Sequel  to  the  Katy  Books.  By  SUSAN  CoOLlDGE.  With  Illus- 
trations by  Jessie  McDermott.  Square  i6mo.  Cloth.  Price,  $1.25. 

RAYMOND   KERSHAW. 

A  Story  of  Deserved  Success.  By  MARIA  MclNTOSH  Cox. 
With  illustrations  by  F.  T.  Merrill.  i6rtio.  Cloth.  Price,  $1.25. 

SPARROW   THE   TRAMP. 

A  Fable  for  Children.  By  LILY  F.  WESSELHCEFT.  With  illus- 
trations by  Jessie  McDermott.  Square  i6mo.  Cloth.  Price,  $1.25. 

MR.   TANGIER'S   VACATIONS. 

A  Novel.  By  Rev.  E.  E.  HALE,  author  of  "  In  His  Name," 
"Man  Without  a  Country,"  etc.  i6mo.  Cloth.  Price,  £1.25. 
Paper,  50  cents. 

THE  PENTAMERON,  CITATION   FROM   WILLIAM   SHAKES- 
PEARE,   AND    MINOR    PROSE    PIECES    AND    CRITI- 
CISMS. 
By  WALTER  SAVAGE  LANDOR.     i2mo.     Cloth.     Price,  $2.00. 

This  volume,  Imaginary  Conversations  (5  vols.),  and  Pericles  and  Aspasia 
(i  vol.),  comprise  Landor's  Entire  Prose  Writings. 

ADELAIDE    RISTORI. 

Studies  and  Memoirs.  An  Autobiography.  (Famous  Women 
Series.)  i6mo.  Cloth.  Price,  $1.00. 


Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers'  Announcements. 

ELIZABETH    BARRETT    BROWNING. 

By  JOHN  H.  INGRAM.  (Famous  Women  Series.)  i6mo.  Cloth. 
Price,  $1.00. 

THE     PILGRIM'S     SCRIP;     OR,    WIT    AND    WISDOM     OF 
GEORGE    MEREDITH. 

With  Selections  from  his  Poetry,   a   Critical    and  Biographical 
Introduction,  and  a  Portrait.     Square  i6mo.     Cloth.    Price,  $1.00. 
BALZAC'S    NOVELS    IN    ENGLISH. 

Translated  by  KATHARINE  PRESCOTT  WORMELEY.  Already 
published :  — 

DUCHESSE  DE  LANGEAIS.  THE  COUNTRY  DOCTOR. 

PERE  GORIOT.  COUSIN  PONS. 

THE   RISE  AND   FALL  OF  THE  TWO   BROTHERS, 

CESAR   BIROTTEAU.  THE  ALKAHEST. 

EUGENIE  GRANDET.  MODESTE  MIGNON. 

THE  MAGIC  SKIN   (LA   PEAU   DE  CHAGRIN). 

(In  Preparation.) 
COUSIN   BETTE.  LOUIS   LAMBERT.  SERAPHITA. 

Handsome   I2mo  volumes.     Uniform  in  size  and  style.     Half 
Russia.     Price,  $1.50  each. 
THE  STORY  OF  AN   AFRICAN    FARM. 

A  Novel.  By  RALPH  IRON  (OLIVE  SCHREINER).  First  Ameri- 
can, from  the  second  London  Edition.  i6mo.  Cloth,  red  and  black. 
Price,  60  cents. 

This  is  the  first  issue  in  our  new  "HANDY  LIBRARY:  Companionable  Books 
for  Home  or  Travel."  The  Handy  Library  will  comprise  new  works,  mainly  of 
fiction,  with  selections  from  the  best  literature  of  the  day  and  age,  will  be  handsomely 
printed  on  good  paper,  and  substantially  bound  in  cloth,  in  uniform  i6mo  volumes, 
and  at  the  uniform  price  of  60  cents  per  volume. 

"  No  one  can  deny  its  great  power.  It  is  written  with  so  constant  an  intensity 
of  passionate  feeling,  with  so  much  sincerity  and  depth  of  thought,  with  such  a 
terrible  realism  in  details,  with  so  much  sympathy  and  high  imagination  in  its 
broader  aspects,  and  finally  with  such  a  tense  power,  as  of  quivering  muscles,  that 
the  reader,  at  once  repelled  and  fascinated,  cannot  lay  the  book  down  until  he  has 
turned  the  last  page.  It  is  a  book  about  which,  whether  one  praise  or  condemn  it, 
one  is  forced  to  speak  in  superlatives."  —  Boston  Daily  Advertiser. 

OUR   RECENT   ACTORS. 

Being  Recollections,  Critical,  and  in  many  cases  Personal,  of  Late 
Distinguished  Performers  of   Both  Sexes.     With  some  Incidental 
Notices  of  Living  Actors.    By  WESTLAND  MARSTON.   i2tno.  Cloth, 
Price,  $2.00. 
PRINCE  VANCE. 

A  Story  of  a  Prince  with  a  Court  in  his  Box.  By  ELEANOR  PUTNAM 
and  ARLO  BATES.  Illustrated  by  Frank  Myrick.  Small  410.  Cloth. 
Price,  $1.50. 


ROBERTS    BROTHERS' 

* 

Companionable  Boohs  for  Home  or  Travel. 


1.  The  Story  of  an  African  Farm.   A  Novel.   By 

RALPH   IRON  (OLIVE  SCHREINER).     i6mo.     Cloth. 
Price,  60  cents. 

2.  Glorinda.     A  Story.     By  ANNA   BOWMAN   DODD, 

author  of  "Cathedral  Days." 

3.  Casimir  Maremma.    A  Story.    By  SIR  ARTHUR 

HELPS,  author  of  "Friends  in  Council,"  " The  Story 
of  Realmah,"  etc. 

4.  Counter-Currents.     A  Story.     By  the  author  of 

"  Justina." 

5.  The  Story  Of  Realmah.    By  SIR  ARTHUR  HELPS. 

6.  The  Truth  About  Clement  Ker.     A  NOVEL. 

By  GEORGE  FLEMING,  author  of  "  Kismet,"  "  Mirage," 
"  The  Head  of  Medusa,"  "  Vestigia,"  "  Andromeda." 

7.  One  Hundred  Romances  of  Real  Life.    Se- 

lected and  Annotated  by  LEIGH  HUNT. 

8.  Sylvia  Arden.    A  Novel.    By  OSWALD  CRAWFURD. 

9.  Religio  Medici.     A  Letter  to  a  Friend,  Christian 

Morals,    Urn-Burial,    and    other    Papers.      By    SIR 
THOMAS  BROWNE. 

10.    My  Prisons:    Memoirs  of  Silvio  Pellico.     With  a 
Sketch  of  his  Life  by  EPES  SARGENT. 


Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers'  Announcements. 

MODESTE   MIGNON. 

Scenes  from  Private  Life.  By  HONORS  DE  BALZAC.  Translated 
by  Katharine  Prescott  Wormeley.  Half  morocco.  French  style. 
Price,  $1.50. 

A  BOOK  OF  POEMS. 

By  JOHN  W.  CHADWICK.  Eighth  edition,  Revised  and  En- 
larged. i6mo.  Cloth.  Price,  $1.25. 

Of  Mr.  Chadwick's  "  Book  of  Poems  "  seven  editions  have  been  sold  already. 
From  the  present  edition  a  number  of  the  more  personal  and  occasional  poems  have 
been  omitted,  and  with  those  retained  a  majority  of  the  poems  in  a  second  volume, 
"In  Nazareth  Town,"  have  been  included,  together  with  a  good  many  that  have 
not  been  before  collected.  Thus  diminished  and  enlarged,  the  publishers  of 
"A  Book  of  Poems"  feel  that  it  is  much  improved,  and  that  it  will  deserve  even  a 
larger  circulation  than  it  has  heretofore  enjoyed,  though  this  has  hardly  been 
exceeded  by  any  of  our  minor  poets. 

THE   EARLY    LIFE   OF   SAMUEL   ROGERS. 

Author  of  "  The  Pleasures  of  Memory."     By  P.  W.  CLAYDEN. 
I2mo.     Cloth.     Price,  $1.75. 

" '  The  Early  Life  of  Samuel  Rogers,'  which  has  been  anticipated  with  an 
interest  beyond  that  given  to  the  announcement  of  any  late  book,  is  now  ready,  and 
will  fully  reach  the  importance  that  it  promised.  It  covers  a  period  of  forty  years, 
or  to  the  opening  of  his  house  in  St.  James  Place,  and  his  appearance  as  one  of  the 
chief  figures  in  English  society,  leaving  to  a  promised  volume  the  account  of  his 
subsequent  life  and  his  brilliant  devotion  to  the  distinguished  men  and  women 
about  him. 

"The  author,  P.  W.  Clayden,  in  undertaking  the  work,  took  upon  himself  a 
task  long  made  obligatory  upon  competent  writers,  in  behalf  of  the  literature  of 
Rogers's  day,  as  well  as  to  justly  describe  and  measure  the  quality  and  power  of 
Rogers  himself.  For  with  all  that  the  poet  has  left  regarding  himself  and  his 
friends,  and  with  what  many  others  have  written  to  help,  there  has  not  been  given 
as  yet  that  interior  and  completed  view  which  profits  the  student  most.  Mr.  Clay- 
den  has  recognized  this  throughout,  and  fortunately  has  been  enabled  to  add  to 
what  is  best  of  what  already  has  been  published,  privileged  and  new  information 
from  materials  furnished  by  the  representatives  of  the  nephews  and  executors  ot 
Mr.  Rogers,  and  in  new  letters  of  Richard  Sharp,  and  that  leaves  little,  if  anything, 
more  to  be  desired. 

"  The  volume  at  hand  is  particularly  illustrative  of  the  author's  fidelity  to  a 
determination  to  an  intimate  and  full  understanding,  and  presents  the  most  satisfac- 
tory portraiture  of  Mr.  Rogers,  under  influence  of  his  motives  and  efforts,  during 
his  earlier  years."  — Boston  Globe. 

THE  STUDY  OF  POLITICS. 

By  Prof.  W.  P.  ATKINSON.  Uniform  with  "  On  History  and 
the  Study  of  History,"  and  "  On  the  Right  Use  of  Books."  i6mo. 
Cloth.  Price,  50  cents. 


Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers'  Announcements. 

NEW    ENGLAND    LEGENDS   AND    FOLK-LORE,    IN     PROSE 
AND    POETRY. 

With  one  hundred  effective  character  illustrations,  from  designs 
by  Merrill  and  others.  A  new  and  cheaper  edition,  uniform  with 
"Old  Landmarks  of  Boston  and  Middlesex."  12010.  Cloth.  Price, 

$2.00. 

MRS.   TILESTON'S   SELECTIONS. 

New  editions  of  Mrs.  Tileston's  Selections  from  THOMAS  A. 
KEMPIS,  FENELON,  and  Dr.  JOHN  TAULER,  each  with  an  ap- 
propriate frontispiece  and  bound  in  a  new  style,  —  white,  yellow, 
and  gold.  Price,  50  cents  each. 

"  Roberts  Brothers  have  issued  charming,  dainty  Easter  editions  of  three  of 
their  '  Wisdom  Series.'  Selections  from  Tauler,  F^nelon,  and  Thomas  a  Kempis  lie 
before  us,  arrayed  in  white,  as  pure  as  the  white  of  the  Easter  lilies.  In  this  busy, 
mundane  life  of  ours  we  need  to  meditate  more,  as  did  these  mystics  of  old,  on  the 
things  of  the  spirit ;  and  who  can  guide  these  meditations  of  ours  more  beautifully 
than  Tauler  and  Fdnelon  ? "  —  Boston  Transcript. 

LONDON  OF  TO-DAY,   1888. 

By  CHARLES  E.  PASCOE.  Numerous  illustrations.  Fourth 
year  of  publication.  I2mo.  Cloth.  Price,  $1.50. 

MARTIN   LUTHER,  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS. 

By  FREDERIC  HENRY  HEDGE,  author  of  "  The  Primeval 
World,"  "  Reason  in  Religion,"  "  Atheism  in  Philosophy,"  etc. 
I2mo.  Cloth.  Price,  $2.00. 

Gordon  Browne's  Series  of  Old  Fairy  Tales. 

HOP  O'  MY  THUMB. 
BEAUTY  AND  THE  BEAST. 

The  Stories  retold  by  LAURA  E.  RICHARDS.  With  colored 
drawings  by  Gordon  Browne.  410.  Illuminated  paper  covers. 
40  cents  each. 

"The  venerable  classics,  'Hop  o'  My  Thumb'  and  '  Beauty  and  the  Beast,' 
are  retold  by  Mrs.  Richards,  and  redecorated  with  pictures  by  Browne,  in  a  style 
that  gives  the  youngsters  fresh  entertainment.  The  pictures  are  capital,  and  compel 
even  the  elder  readers  to  renew  their  long-neglected  studies."  — Home  Journal. 

TREASURE  ISLAND.     ILLUSTRATED. 

A  Story  of  Pirates  and  the  Spanish  Main.  By  ROBERT  Louis 
STEVENSON,  author  of  "Travels  with  a  Donkey,"  "An  Inland 
Voyage,"  "  Silverado  Squatters,"  etc.  A  new  enlarged  edition  with 
28  illustrations.  I2mo.  Cloth,  gilt,  and  colors.  Price,  $1.25. 


Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers'  Announcements. 

THE    UNITED    STATES    OF    YESTERDAY    AND    OF    TO- 
MORROW. 

By  WILLIAM  BARROWS,  D.D.,  author  of  "  Oregon ;  the  Strug- 
gle for  Possession,"  "  The  Indian  Side  of  the  Indian  Question,"  etc. 
I  vol.  i6mo.  Cloth.  Price,  $1.25. 

This  book  has  been  written  to  answer  questions.  As  the  author  in  earlier  days 
had  spent  several  years  beyond  the  Mississippi,  and  much  time  and  travel  there 
since  in  official  work,  during  which  he  made  ten  tours  over  the  border,  and  in  the 
East  had  devoted  much  labor  to  public  addresses  and  lectures  on  our  new  country, 
it  was  quite  natural  that  a  miscellaneous  information  should  be  solicited  from  him 
concerning  the  territory  between  the  Alleghanies  and  the  Pacific. 

For  various  reasons  it  has  seemed  best  to  let  this  information  group  itself  into 
topics,  and  so  it  stands  classified  under  headings  and  in  chapters.  —  From  tht 
Introduction. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  PEOPLE  OF  ISRAEL, 

Till  the  Time  of  King  David.  By  ERNEST  RENAN,  author  of 
"  Life  of  Jesus."  Demy.  8vo.  Cloth.  Price,  $2.50. 

"  It  may  safely  be  predicted  that  Renan's  latest  production  will  take  rank  as 
his  most  important  since  the  '  Life  of  Jesus.'  There  is  the  same  charming  style, 
the  same  brilliancy  of  treatment,  the  same  clear  judgment  and  delicate  touches,  the 
deep  thoughts  and  thorough  mastery  of  his  subject,  which  have  made  Renan  one  of 
the  most  fascinating  of  modern  writers."  —  New  York  Times. 

"  To  all  who  know  anything  of  M.  Renan's  '  Life  of  Jesus '  it  will  be  no  sur- 
prise that  the  same  writer  has  told  the  '  History  of  the  People  of  Israel  till  the  Time 
of  King  David'  as  it  was  never  told  before  nor  is  ever  like  to  be  told  again.  For 
but  once  in  centuries  does  a  Renan  arise,  and  to  any  other  hand  this  work  were  im- 
possible. Throughout  it  is  the  perfection  of  paradox,  for,  dealing  wholly  with  what 
we  are  all  taught  to  lisp  at  the  mother's  knee,  it  is  more  original  than  the  wildest 
romance;  more  heterodox  than  heterodoxy,  it  is  yet  full  of  large  and  tender  rever- 
ence for  that  supreme  religion  that  brightens  all  time  as  it  transcends  all  creeds."  — 
The  Commercial  Advertiser. 

HANNAH   MORE. 

By  CHARLOTTE  M.  YONGE,  author  of  "  Heir  of  Redclyffe,"  etc. 
Famous  Women  Series,  uniform  with  "George  Eliot,"  "  Margaret 
Fuller,"  "  Mary  Lamb,"  etc.  i6mo.  Cloth.  Price,  $1.00. 

"  Perhaps  a  better  selection  of  biographer  for  Hannah  More  could  not  have 
been  imagined  than  Charlotte  M.  Yonge,  who  has  just  added  her  life  to  the  Famous 
Women  Series.  Certainly  the  book  is  one  of  the  most  thoroughly  entertaining  of 
the  series.  It  is  written  in  an  easy  and  flowing  style,  and  is  full  of  telling  points. 
Miss  Yonge  is  too  well  trained  as  a  literary  woman  not  to  know  how  to  make  the 
best  of  her  material,  and  she  is  in  most  thorough  sympathy  with  her  subject.  In- 
deed, Miss  Yonge  might  not  unjustly  be  called  the  Hannah  More  of  to-day.  .  .  . 
She  has  almost  the  same  theories  of  the  object  of  literary  work  as  had  Hannah 
More,  and  can  enter  perfectly  into  her  feelings  and  aims.  The  volume  is  full,  too, 
of  personal  anecdote,  and  of  clever  discrinr-iation  of  character."  —  The  Beacon. 


Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers'  Announcements. 

LIFE  OF  DR.  ANANDIBAI  JOSHEE, 

The  Kinswoman  and  Friend  of  Pundita  Ramabai.  By  Mrs. 
CAROLINE  H.  BALL.  i2ino.  Cloth.  Price,  $1.00.  It  contains 
many  original  letters,  and  is  embellished  by  a  full-length  portrait  of 
Dr.  Joshee.  The  author  designs  that  the  profits  of  the  sale  shall 
go  to  the  Ramabai  "  School  Fund,"  and  all  well-wishers  of  high- 
caste  Hindu  women  are  requested  to  interest  themselves  in  this 
book. 

"  A  curious  and  touching  little  episode  in  life  was  observed  in  this  country  a 
few  years  ago  in  the  entrance  of  a  Hindu  woman  to  the  Woman's  Medical  College 
of  Philadelphia  as  a  student ;  her  life  of  three  years  in  that  institution  ;  her  depar- 
ture for  her  own  country  to  fill  a  high  professional  position,  and  her  death  four 
months  after  her  return.  .  .  .  There  are  occasionally  born  into  the  world  those  who 
become,  indeed,  ministering  spirits ;  souls  finely  touched  from  some  diviner  sphere, 
who  seem  to  be  impersonated  here  for  some  especial  and  distinctive  purpose  ;  and 
of  these  Dr.  Joshee  was  one.  This  memoir,  written  by  Mrs.  Caroline  Healey  Call, 
of  Washington,  presents  most  fittingly  and  graphically  the  story  of  her  life.  Mrs. 
Dall  has  entered  into  it  with  unerring  sympathy,  and  has  also  brought  to  the  work 
her  extensive  scholarly  knowledge  and  the  culture  born  of  wide  experience  in  litera- 
ture and  life,  out  of  which  alone  this  biography  could  be  fitly  written.  .  .  .  Mrs. 
Dall  relates  the  story  of  her  life  with  great  accuracy  of  detail  in  historic  allusion, 
with  broad  comprehension  of  the  relation  this  unique  life  bears  to  the  general  ad- 
vancement of  the  condition  of  women  in  India,  and  its  relation  to  social  progress. 
The  book  is  one  of  the  deepest  interest,  and  the  frontispiece,  giving  a  full-length 
portrait  of  Dr.  Joshee  in  her  Hindu  costume,  will  be  prized  by  all  readers.  To 
write  such  a  biography  required  exceptional  powers,  and  too  much  can  hardly  be 
said  in  praise  of  the  admirable  manner  in  which  Mrs.  Dall  has  accomplished  the 
work."  —  Boston  Evening  Traveller • 

AMOS  BRONSON  ALCOTT. 

His  Character.  A  Sermon  by  Rev.  C.  A.  BARTOL.  Containing 
also  a  Tribute  paid  to  Louisa  M.  Alcott.  Pamphlet,  20  cents. 


FOB    SUMMER    BEADING. 

Neiv  editions  of  the  following  popular  books  in  paper  covers,  price, 
50  rents  each.     Namely :  — 

"  Kismet,"  "  Signer  Monaldini's  Niece,"  "  The  Colonel's  Opera 
Cloak,"  "  A  Week  Away  P'rom  Time,"  "  Some  Women's  Hearts," 
"  A  Lad's  Love,"  "  Button's  Inn,"  "  South-County  Neighbors," 
'  Ouvie'ves  and  Our  Neighbors,"  "Mr.  Tangier's  Vacations," 
"  Rosrer  BerL<lev\  Probation." 


The 
No  Name 

Novels. 

"  No  one  of  the  numerous  series  of  novels 
with  which  the  country  has  been  deluged 
of  late  contains  as  many  good  volumes  of 
fiction  as  the  '  No  Name,' "  says  SCRIB- 
NER'S  MONTHLY. 

THIRD    SERIES, 

The  publishers  take  pleasure  in  announcing  a  new  and  bright 
novel  in  the  popular  "  No  Name  "  series.  It  is  a  study,  with  a 
large  basis  of  reality,  illustrating  the  Cracker  element  in  Florida 
life.  The  eleventh  volume  in  the  Third  Series  is  entitled 

CRACKER  JOE. 


Previously  Published. 

FIRST  SERIES.  —  Afterglow  ;  Deirdre  ;  Is  That  All  ?  Will 
Denbigh,  Nobleman  ;  Kismet ;  The  Wolf  at  the  Door ;  The 
Great  Match ;  Marmorne ;  Mirage ;  A  Modern  Mephistopheles  ; 
Gemini;  A  Masque  of  Poets.  12  vols.,  black  and  gold. 

SECOND  SERIES.  —  Signor  Monaldini's  Niece  ;  The  Colonel's 
Opera  Cloak ;  His  Majesty,  Myself ;  Mrs.  Beauchamp  Brown ; 
Salvage;  Don  John;  The  Tsar's  Window;  Manuela  Paredes ; 
Baby  Rue;  My  Wife  and  My  Wife's  Sister;  Her  Picture;  Aschen- 
broedel.  12  vols.,  green  and  black. 

THIRD  SERIES.  —  Her  Crime;  Little  Sister ;  Barrington's  Fate ; 
A  Daughter  of  the  Philistines ;  Princess  Amelie  ;  Diane  Coryval ; 
Almost  a  Duchess  ;  A  Superior  Woman  ;  Justina  ;  A  Question  of 
Identity.  Bound  in  rich  brown  cloth,  stamped  in  black  and  gold. 

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GEORGE   ELIOT.     By  Miss  BLIND. 
EMILY   BRONTE.     By  Miss  ROBINSON. 
GEORGE  SAND.    By  Miss  THOMAS. 
MARY   LAMB.    By  MRS.  GILCHRIST. 
MARGARET  FULLER.    By  JULIA  WARD  HOWE. 
MARIA   EDGEWORTH.    By  Miss  ZIMMERN. 
ELIZABETH    FRY.     By  MRS.  E.  R.  PITMAN. 
THE  COUNTESS   OF  ALBANY.    By  VERNON  LEE. 
MARY  WOLLSTONECRAFT.     By  MRS.  E.  R.  PENNELL. 
HARRIET   MARTINEAU.     By  MRS.  F.  FENWICK  MILLER. 
RACHEL.    By  MRS.  NINA  H.  KENNARD. 
MADAME   ROLAND.    By  MATHILDE  BLIND. 
SUSANNA   WESLEY.    By  ELIZA  CLARKE. 
MARGARET   OF   ANGOULEME.     By  Miss  ROBINSON. 
MRS.   SIDDONS.    By  MRS.  NINA  H.  KENNARD. 
MADAME  DE  STAEL.     By  BELLA  DUFFY. 
HANNAH   MORE.    By  CHARLOTTE  M.  YONGE. 
ADELAIDE   RISTORI.     An  Autobiography. 
ELIZABETH     BARRETT    BROWNING.       By  JOHN   H. 
INGRAM. 

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